A Game Of Ghosts
by The Painted Fox
Summary: He thaught he had been trapped for all time, Until they found his prison in the basement. A curious child and protective mother soon end up on the adventure of a life time. "Oh how i wish i hadent allowed my son into the basement." Story Completed.
1. Lets Play A Game

We did not know we had a ghost until we found that box hidden under a strange slab of stone under the floor of our basement.

Well, actually, I didn't find the box at all; it was my son, Alex, who found it while he was exploring our new house in Eerie, Pennsylvania. Alex always loved exploring when we moved, which we did quite often. My ex-fiancé, Paul, and I had split up a year ago, and even after Alex and I moved to a new place, Paul always managed to find us. Moving always seemed like a safer option than dealing with him.

It had been nearly six months since we last heard anything of Paul. I thought Alex and I would finally be free of trouble, and could live our lives in safety, until the day Alex made that fateful discovery…

"_Mom_! I found something really _cool_!"

My five-year-old son's sudden call from somewhere in the bowels of our new house made me jump up from my coffee at the kitchen table and follow his voice to the dusty basement, where I found him standing on a slab of white marble. I could not help but to think how odd it was to find marble in the basement; the house was not very old, yet the stone looked very weathered with age. Perhaps the house had been built over the top of the stone, or perhaps the previous owners were undertakers. It _did _look like an old tombstone of sorts…

"Alex, that doesn't look safe, get back over here," I said, but my words fell on deaf ears as Alex bent over and began sliding around some odd panels on the stone. He had always had an uncanny knack for solving puzzles. The low, grinding sound the panels made as they slid against the marble was chilling, like the sound of a tomb being opened for the first time in thousands of years. I froze in my spot.

"That better not be a grave. Alex, if that is a grave we are moving A-S-A-P!" I warned him as he slid the last panel in place.

But his bravery quickly disappeared as the stone rapidly crumbled into dust, and he darted under the basement staircase. I could just barely make out his face peeking out from between the steps. Now it was my turn to be the brave one. I was shaking as I peered into the hole left behind from the crumbled stone. Part of me expected a zombie or a vampire to jump out at me, like in the movies.

_Okay, Rio, you__'__re 22 years old, don__'__t be silly,_ I thought, laughing to myself as I reached into the hole and pulled out an old wooden box.

The box was strange. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. It had six sides like a hexagon, and even though it had been under ground for a while, it was not rotted away like I would have expected it to be. It was heavy, perhaps made from oak or rosewood. When I tipped it up to get a look at a rusted lock which held the box shut, something inside rattled.

"Oh, Alex, it's okay. It's just a time capsule," I reassured him, blowing a thick layer of dirt and dust out of the wood. Alex cautiously emerged from his hiding spot to look at the time capsule over my shoulder. The box looked like patterns had once been painted onto it, but had faded over time. Taking Alex by the hand, we went back up into the kitchen, where I hoped to find a way to open the box to see what was inside.

Initially, I thought to unscrew the hinges and just pop the lid off. However, the box was very old and I could not really see where the hinges were, much less find the screws that held them in place. The lock did not look very strong, so I decided to just open the lid by force. The first attempt at prying the lid off of the box resulted in my breaking the best kitchen knife I had, so I resorted to more drastic measures. I went out to the shed and retrieved the Cat's Paw pry bar that I had used to pry the old nails off the walls in the living room when we first moved to our new house. The pry bar did the trick, and the old hinges popped, allowing us access into the box.

"It's just junk," Alex pouted as he picked up an oddly-shaped pendant. Its chain had long since rusted away. I frowned at a mushy substance that was either old paper or a dead rat. "Cool! A dragon! Here, Mom," he dropped the pendant into my hand and went for a little eagle at the bottom of the box. It looked like it had been carved out of die-cast, or maybe silver.

I turned my attention to the pendant that I was now holding. It had been made from ivory, and had a silver band set into it. It very much resembled the letter _A_ with an intricate semi-circle connecting its lower points. It was very stylish and elegant; it would be excellent to wear at a wedding or something.

But, if I was ever going to wear it, I would have to take it to a jeweler's and get a new chain for it; the remains of the one it dangled from had a broken clasp.

With Alex running around the kitchen making his new 'dragon' fly, I made to dump the mushy contents of the box in the trash can, just incase it something was still alive inside. As I picked the box up, I must have jarred open a hidden drawer or something, as two small daggers and a strange piece of metal clattered to the floor. The noise brought Alex to a halt in mid-run as he went round the table for the eighth time.

_What on earth, _I thought as I picked the daggers up. They were very well-made, definitely handcrafted by the looks of them; the hilts on the daggers resembled flying eagles. I placed them on the kitchen counter before taking the box outside with the trash.

..xoxoxoxoxox..

The assistant at Chiccarine's Fine Jewelry and Diamond, who I found was also my next-door neighbor, explained to me that the remains of the pendant's chain initially looked beyond repair, but she would give it a chance, anyway. With or without a new chain, the pendant would be appraised, and would be back in my hands in about a week. With that, I could not do anything else but go home and fiddle with the other contents that had been in the box.

I had not thought anything of the daggers until later that evening, when I went to look at them again and see if there were any similar ones on eBay. But the daggers had vanished. I hoped that Alex had not found them; I did not really want to go on a trip to the emergency room.

"Alex have you seen those daggers that were on the counter?" I called up to him, but he failed to hear me. He was in his room playing with his toy knights and the little die-cast eagle, which he kept insisting was really a dragon. From all the noise he was making, I could tell he, and his knights, were in the middle of an intense round of dragon-slaying.

"Hey Trouble, it's bedtime," I said as I walked in his room. His knights were scattered around the floor, while the eagle laid on its back, looking rather dead as one of the knights stood on top of it.

"But _Mom_! The slayers have just killed the dragon and are going to a party!" he grumbled as I made him get in bed.

"Are you sure they are? They all look dead apart from the one standing on the eagle."

"_Mom,_ it's a dragon!"

"Are you sure? It has feathers and goes _squawk! _when it flies," I mimicked the best flying motions I could with my arms. Alex laughed. As I pulled the covers up to his chin, his eyes traveled to the far corner of his room and he pulled his arm out from under the blankets to wave.

"Who are you waving at?" I asked, looking over at the corner he had waved at. All I saw was his toy chest, and a small battalion of stuffed animals sitting on top of it.

"Eddy!" he giggled, waving one last time at the corner. I cocked an eyebrow at him

"Eddy? Your invisible bunny, Eddy? I thought you said I drove over him in the driveway at Nan's house, crushing his skull and killing him instantly…" I recalled the day that I had forever banned Alex from ever watching CSI on television again. Alex shrugged at me nonchalantly.

"No, that was Eddie, with an I-E at the end. This is Eddy with a Y. It's his twin!" I nodded at him; of course, it all made sense now.

"Well, say goodnight to Eddy with a Y at the end and go to sleep," I kissed his forehead and saying goodnight before carefully stepping over the pretend battlefield. I reached up to turn the light off, but stopped.

"Oh, Alex," I leaned against the door frame, "did you move the daggers from earlier?"

"No."

I frowned.

"Hmm, must have misplaced them and forgot about it. Goodnight, honey." I shut the light off and retreated to my room.

..xoxoxoxoxox..

It was raining when I woke up the next morning. Getting out of bed, I stretched, and jumped when I saw what I thought had been a figure of a person in the corner of my eye.

Instinctively, I grabbed the baseball bat that I kept beside my bed in case of a break-in. Or worse, _Paul_. Clenching the end of the bat between my fingers, I turned around to face the wardrobe.

Nothing.

I sighed in relief and propped the bat against the wall again. It must have been my shadow.

I waited until my heartbeat slowed back to normal before heading to Alex's room. Today was Saturday, so I was going to take him shopping. He had grown out of his cloths _again_. To my surprise, when I walked into his room, Alex was already awake, and he was standing on his bed staring down at an odd sight.

Each and every Lego building block that my mother had bought for him had been built up to resemble a large, twisting city with crooked streets and tall towers. His toy knights were set up in different places, and the die cast eagle was carefully balanced on top of one of the towers.

"Isn't this cool? He built this for me!" Alex shouted me.

"Who is 'he'?" I asked as I inspected the buildings.

"Avalar did! He's my new friend. He's a ninja lion from Camelot."

I blinked at my son, telling myself it was probably a good idea to ban him from watching all of the King Arthur reenactments on the History Channel, if he was going to let his imagination run away with him again.

"Oh. He sounds fascinating…"

Slightly unnerved, I herded Alex into the bathroom across the corridor. It took half an hour get him washed up for the day, as he insisted that he was already clean and would only get more dirty later.

The morning routine is never quick or simple.

After arguing over taking a bath, I decided to give up on getting him to brush his teeth – he'd only go and eat Fruity Pebbles for breakfast afterwards, anyway – so I went to get myself ready to leave the house. I could only hope that the denim jeans and red t-shirt I had dressed him in would stay clean during that time.

Luckily they had, and I was soon wrestling him into his booster in the back seat of my car. I hated the damn thing. Even though Alex was too small to sit in the car without a seat, he was getting to be too big for the booster we had, which made buckling up all the straps an insufferable task.

"Mom, say hello," he held up the toy eagle in my face. All I could manage was an agitated grumble that resembled a strained 'hello.' Alex scowled at me.

"Don't worry, she's always like that in the mornings," he said conversationally, looking down at the toy.

I shut the door on his side and went to the driver's seat. 'Iris,' by the Goo Goo Dolls, was playing on the radio as I drove to the mall. I sang along with the music, listening to Alex as he sang along with it as well. He sang to all of the songs on the radio, ever since I threw the Barney Sing-Along tape out of the window a week before.

It was our first time visiting the mall since moving to our new house. Alex was amazed by the size of it—we spent most of our time in a hole-in-the-wall outlet when we lived in our previous home—while I was just amazed that there was a sale in many of the clothing shops. Perhaps it would not cost so much to keep Alex after all. It wasn't that he had expensive taste in clothing – he would probably run round naked, if I let him – it was that he outgrew what I bought him so quickly. I needed to find him clothes that would last more than two days.

"I want that one," Alex pointed at a hoodie that was on the sale rail. The reason why he wanted it was because it had an eagle on it. Apparently, eagles were this month's "in thing." Last month, all he had wanted was dragons and knights.

But, the hoodie was white, and, when it came to kids, white_ never_ stayed clean for long it; even black never stayed clean.

"You can't have it," I said.

"But why not?" He pouted.

"Because you'd never keep it clean."

"You're no fun."

"I'm a mom, I'm not allowed to have fun. But _you _can. So, go have fun causing chaos at the toy store with Avalar and let me have no fun while I shop," He seemed satisfied with my answer, and he disappeared into the nearby toy store, "Stay near the front where I can see you!"

When I was sure he was distracted, I picked the hoodie off of the rack.

..xoxoxoxoxoxo..

Upon arriving home, I noticed that the television was on, turned to the History Channel. The program that was on was documenting the history of the Crusades.

"The Hashshashin Sect held fast to their control of Masyaf until 1260, when the Mongols—" I frowned at the bloody re-enactment of dirty-looking men dressed in robes and masks wreaking havoc on defenseless townspeople balancing large clay pots on their heads. Alex didn't need to watch that. I quickly changed the channel to Nickelodeon, where Spongebob Squarepants was trying to teach Gary the Snail how to sing.

"Hmm, I could have sworn I switched it off before we left," I muttered, flicking on the light and nearly tripping over Alex on my way to the kitchen as he dashed into the living room and plopped onto the couch.

Something glinted from the corner of my eye, and I gasped and froze when I saw the pendant hanging from the fridge door. The chain looked like some of the links had been reworked, and the clasp appeared to have been mended.

"That's odd. It's not supposed to be fixed until Friday," I mumbled to myself as I took it off the fridge and held it between my fingers.

A flash of movement from behind me made me look into the living room. Alex was standing on the sofa, the hood on the three-times-too-big hoodie covered most of his face. I frowned at him.

"What are you doing up there, Alex? Get down before you hurt yourself!"

"Do you see him, Mom? He's here!" he chirped.

"Alex, stop playing games and get down from there!"

I was about to reach and grab him when he frowned back at me, "Mom, you have to put the necklace on or you won't be able to see him!" I glanced back down at the pendant between my fingers. What on earth was he talking about? He was still staring at me expectantly when I looked back at him.

"See _who __–_"

"Just do it!"

Deciding it was better to just humor my son, I slipped the necklace round my neck and looked up at Alex.

"There, see? I'm wearing it! Now get down from—" I froze, staring into my living room in shock.


	2. Truth Or Dare

There was a man was standing beside the sofa. _A man who had most certainly not been there before._ He was very tall and nimble, and was dressed in a tapered, white, robe. A hood was drawn over his head, hiding all of his facial features save for a strong, stubbly jaw line.

But it wasn't the anonymity in his face that terrified me. It was the dark, dried blood that stained his arms and body, and the very sharp knives that he held in his right hand. It took me a moment to realize that the knives he held were the same exact daggers that had vanished from the counter the day before. It was no wonder Alex had not known where they had disappeared to when I asked him the night before.

I yelped, holding a hand to my mouth.

Alex, on the other hand, was totally calm, if not _ecstatic_. He cheered heartily and clapped, "Avalar! She can see you now!"

"_Alex, get back over here right now!"_ I screamed, snatching Alex by the collar of his shirt and yanking him back behind me.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?" I yelled at the robed man. Alex grabbed my and pulled on it hard.

"Mom! Stop yelling at him! He won't hurt us!" He shouted as I stepped backward into the kitchen, pulling him with me. I could feel Alex trying to scramble away, but I snared the back of his shirt in my fingers. When I felt the kitchen island press against my back, I grabbed one of the steak knives from the holder with the hand not holding onto Alex. I clenched the knife, pointing it at the robed man, who had started very slowly stepping into the kitchen. His tall, leather boots were dusty with white sand, and they just barely squeaked with each step he took.

_What the hell, white sand? The sand from the lakeside of the house is gold, _I thought. _Perhaps I left the patio doors unlocked..._

"Mom!" Alex called again, trying to wriggle himself out of my grasp. He made a strangled sort of noise when I yanked him back toward me again, "Mom! Stop! He's _nice_!"

"I obey the Creed," the man said softly. His voice was irritatingly toneless and calm. He spoke with a heavy, unfamiliar accent, "I will not harm you, or your son." He held up his hands. The right one, which held the daggers, was bare while the left one was gloved; the strange metal cuff that had fallen out of the box with the daggers the day before was clamped tightly onto his wrist.

One of his ring fingers was missing.

"Like hell you won't," I growled over Alex's protests, pointing the steak knife directly at the man's heart. "Who are you?" I braced the knife.

"Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad," the name rolled easily off his tongue. I blinked in confusion.

I heard the back door open and slam from somewhere in the distance. Instinctively, I whipped toward it, accidentally releasing Alex's shirt.

"Miss Bryer?"

It was Deborah, the wife of our next-door neighbor, Clarence Waverly. The nosey, parrot-faced woman stepped into the back door. She was fiddling with the wooden cross that hung from her neck.

"Mrs. Waverly!" I shouted, still pointing the knife at the man in my kitchen.

"Miss Bryer? Is everything all right?" She stopped abruptly in her path, her eyes falling to the knife in my hands, "Just _what_ is going on?"

I looked from the knife, to the robed man, who had stepped backward into the living room, and then back to Mrs. Waverly.

"Mrs. Waverly, there is a man standing near the sofa, and he's got knives! Go call the police!"

She looked perplexed as she leaned forward, still fumbling with her cross between her hands, and peered into the living room.

"Miss Bryer, there isn't… I don't see _anyone_ there…"

I looked into the living room, where the robed man was standing with his back against the couch. His head was bowed, his face completely disappearing into his robes. It almost resembled a child who knew he was in trouble, and was trying to appear innocent.

_Is she so blind that she cannot see him?_

"Should I still call…?"

"Hi Mrs. Waverly!" Alex piped up from in front of the refrigerator. She smiled at him, as he waved at her.

"Hello, Mr. Alex."

"Don't worry about us. Me and my mom are just playing a game of ghosts!"

Mrs. Waverly looked from him and back to me. Realization seemed to have dawned on her, but she still looked apprehensive.

"Oh, so you're just playing a game with Alex?"

I felt the urge to scream in anger and fear. How could she not see him? I swallowed my frustration and resorted to glaring at her before looking back into the living room.

It was empty.

_What is going on?_

As though to corroborate Alex's story, I put the knife on the island and nodded at her.

"Yes, we were just playing a game that got carried away," I held my hand out to Alex, "Come on, Alex, we need to make macaroni and cheese for dinner."

Alex clapped, "Macaronies!" He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the pantry to get the blue Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box,

"All right, well, if that's all I'll just be on my way. Do call us if you need anything."

"Will do, Mrs. Waverly," I called over my shoulder, refusing to look at her as I took the box from Alex and ripped it open. I heard her footsteps shuffle back toward my door.

"Oh," she began just as she was stepping out. I briefly closed my eyes and opened them before forcing myself to smile at her, "Do try to be just _a little_ quieter. We don't want to wake the dead," she gave her head a little bow and shuffled out before I could really say anything. When the door shut, Alex blew a raspberry.

"I hate that old lady. She smells like an old fart," he grumbled, crunching on a dry noodle.

"You shouldn't hate people, it's awful," I attempted to scold him, but was too busy searching for the robed man in my living room to bring the full blunt of my reprimand down on him.

All that was left was an empty living room. Everything was as it had been before. I blinked.

_What had happened just now?_

Alex was determined to help me make dinner, and so I pulled out his easy-to read measuring cup and told him to measure six cups of water for the macaroni and cheese. He gleefully did so, carefully counting out six exact cups of water and pouring them into a pan.

The only colander we had to strain the noodles when they were finished cooking was in the old dishwasher that came with the house. When I bent over to pull it open, the pendant smacked me in the face.

I stopped.

_Mom, you have to put the necklace on or you won't be able to see him! _

Alex's words echoed through my head, even drowning out the sounds of his double-checking with me that he actually had measured six cups of water and not five. I looked down at the pendant and quickly tore it off my neck, throwing it into the living room. I heard it hit the wood flooring and slide under the loveseat.

_It can stay there for forever, for all I care_, I thought. _Out of sight, out of mind._

Somehow, I knew it wouldn't be that simple.

"Are you okay, Mom?" Alex asked, pulling me out of my reverie. He was looking at me strangely. I smiled at him.

"Yes, baby, just a little frightened."

"It's okay, he won't hurt us. He's gone now, anyways."

His innocent words sent a chill down my spine. Somehow, I doubted that a man who was caked in blood and carried sharp weapons with such ease wouldn't hurt us. But I was too confused and too tired to argue. Instead, I ruffled his hair.

"Did you measure six cups of water?"

He pointed at the pan full of water and grinned at me, "How'd I do?"

"It's perfect."

..xoxoxoxoxoxox..

After dinner, I sent Alex to his room while I cleaned up the kitchen. I was trying to not think about the robed man who had been standing in my living room, but I couldn't help it. After all of the dishes were washed, and the pans put away, I sat down at the computer to do some research.

I tried searching for the name that he had given me, but had come up empty-handed. Even searching for the pieces of clothing he had been wearing bore no results. Lastly, I tried searching for the pendant itself, which only yielded websites about object possession.

One website had caught my eye; it was run by a woman who had extensive knowledge in the paranormal. In one of her articles, she mentioned a story involving a woman who was being haunted by the ghost of a Crusader, whom she called "Bucket Head." When asked how she had come in contact with the ghost, she said it all began when she bought a rare necklace while on a vacation to Greece. The ghost had apparently been tied to it.

I frowned at the article. It all sounded strangely like the pendant under my loveseat, but it could also be coincidence, too, right?

_So that's what you think this is? _I thought to myself. _A ghost? _

I did not know what to think. But surely, it wouldn't hurt to at least e-mail this woman; some answer is better than no answer at all.

As soon as I had sent the woman an e-mail, I looked at the clock; it was quarter after nine. Shutting off the computer, I headed upstairs to Alex's room.

"Alex, time to go to bed, we're going to have another busy day tomorrow," I reminded him. I had planned to take him to the zoo in an attempt to help him settle into the new community better. With the recent day's events, though, it looked like I needed help settling in, as well.

..xoxoxoxox..

_It was warm. I could taste the sand in the air._

_I was standing in a temple, women in long, dusty tunics stood around an altar made from what looked like the white marble. Where had I seen that before? One of the women wore a flowing golden dress and gold jewellery. But I could not see her face, as she wore a headdress that resembled a jackal's skull with feathers and beads dangling off of it.._

_Where was I? Who were these people?_

_She turned in my direction for a moment before a loud crashing sound turned my attention the door that had just been flung open._

_Two women came in. They both wore tan leather tops and tan leggings, as well as lion skulls over their heads. In one of their hands, each woman carried a knife with a jagged blade. Behind them, they and were dragging something, a body, into the temple. _

_Who were they dragging?_

I woke up in a cold sweat, my breathing fast and heavy. Lightning flashed across my window, followed by the crash of thunder. A storm was raging outside. I sat up in bed and tried the light, but it would not work. The power must have been knocked out, and the breaker needed to be reset.

Sighing, I swallowed the fear rising in my chest and reached over to my bedside table to find my glasses. After putting them on, I squinted through the darkness for any sign of my novelty Felix the Cat slippers.

I could just barely see them kicked against the wall by the door when lightning once again flashed across the sky, lighting my room with an eerie blue glow. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the strange light illuminate the white, hooded head of the man from the living room crouched at the foot of my bed. His head was bowed to the floor. But the flash of light that filled the room went away as soon as it had come, and the room was empty again.

"I must be going mad," I muttered to myself.

I grabbed my robe from its hanger on my bedroom door as I slid my slippers onto my feet, and fumbled my way down the stairs to reset the breaker.

The door that led to the basement was in the foyer. When I opened it, I was greeted with the darkest blackness I had ever seen. Knowing that total darkness and stairs never made a good combination, I went through the junk drawer in the kitchen to find a flashlight.

I eventually found one, but it was the one that I had gotten for Alex to use for trick-or-treating last Halloween after he had begged for it the entire time we were looking for costumes. It had Batman on it, and everywhere I pointed the light I saw the bat signal. The only other flashlight we had was the one that I had used that year, which shone the shape of a ghost.

I decided the Batman flashlight was less likely to run out of batteries on me. That, and I wasn't too keen on the idea of shining a ghost everywhere.

I also took the tennis racquet with me just as a precaution. Sometimes giant mutant spiders lurked in dark basements. Sometimes, ghosts did, too.

Dammit, Rio, enough with the ghost nonsense!

Bravely squaring my shoulders, I cautiously made my way down the basement steps to the breaker. All I had to do was flip a few switches, and I'd be able to go back to bed. As I shined the light in the direction of the breaker, the bat signal lit up the face of an old werewolf mask left over from the house's last occupants. Alex had found it on one of his adventures in the basement. I screamed.

_Who the hell hangs werewolf masks on fuse boxes?_ I thought to myself as I regained my composure and tossed the mask aside and flipped the breaker fuses; the house began to buzz with electricity again. The lurking feeling that someone was standing behind me made my trip back up the steps much faster than it had been going down.

Just before I reached the stairs, the bat signal's light caught on the fireplace in the living room, stopping me in my tracks. The necklace was hanging from one of the stocking-nails on the mantle. I frowned. Alex couldn't have put it there; he was too short to reach.

Could it have been the man…?

"Stop that," I scolded myself, closing my eyes. I quickly crossed the room, plucked it from the curved nail, and tossed it into my potted Peace Lilies.

"Out of sight out of mind," I mumbled as I headed upstairs.

Alex's light was on when I walked by his room. I peered at him through the door. Though I had tucked him into bed he had apparently gotten back up and was now asleep near the miniature Lego city. It was nothing short of amazing that it wasn't in bits and pieces, yet. Usually breakable things that were _not_ out of his reach usually ended up broken very quickly.

"Oh Monkey, what mess are we in this time?" I whispered as I picked him up and tucked him back into bed. Thunderstorms could make as much noise as they wanted, but Alex could sleep through anything.

In his hand, he held the little die-cast eagle. I pried it from his grip and carelessly tossed it in to his toy box.

_Out of sight, out of mind._

How I hated that bird…

After kissing his forehead and whispering goodnight, I flicked the light off. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the room. I could have sworn I saw a robed figure standing by the window, but when I looked back, nothing was there.

"I really need to go back to bed," I murmured.

..xoxoxoxox..

"Mom! Zoo time!"

I woke up with a start at the sound of running feet, followed by the feeling of a five-year-old taking a swan-dive into my bed. Alex had obviously remembered about our trip to the zoo.

The morning routine ran smoother than normal. Alex didn't even bother in putting up a fight over taking a bath. At breakfast, I watched him blow bubbles into his chocolate milk with his 'lucky' curly-straw while I sipped my coffee. Between laughs and giggles, he would look up and smile at me. I smiled back, deep down wondering what life would be like if Paul hadn't been such a violent person. Would I still be in this cheap house with the strange marble in the basement and the spirit of a dagger-wielding man wearing a white robe? Or would I be living on a farm in the country with several horses, a puppy for Alex, and my parents? That had been the stupid dream that I had wanted, but had never been given, when I had been young and naïve.

Damn Paul. _Damn him_.

Alex was gushing over a particularly large bubble he had blown in his milk when I felt the sensation that someone was standing right behind me. I froze, feeling the hair stand on the back of my neck, and reached up to the cupboard with the loose hinges and flung it opened. The door swung out; I had expected it to hear it hit whatever it was behind me, but heard nothing. I turned round, finding nothing behind me and laughing nervously. Alex looked at me as if I had gone mad; and for a moment, I felt I had.

I wondered how he remained diligently undeterred by the robed man.

To reassure him that I was fine, I put my coffee down and came up behind him, giving him a hug.

"Hey Trouble, what animals are you really exited about seeing? I want to see if I can cuddle a monkey that looks like you!" I asked as I kissed the side of his face and tickled him. He started laughing so hard that it made milk come out of his nose, which made me grimace, and made him laugh harder. Consequently, his toy eagle, who had been "flying," took a nose-dive into his bowl of cereal.

"I wanna see if I can get an eagle feather!" Alex chirped as he picked up the half-submerged toy eagle from his cereal bowl.

"Alex don't put it in your mouth, you don't know where that's been! Let me wash it off…"

"I do _too_! It's been in my hands!" he defended, pouting as I grabbed the dripping eagle from him and ran it under the tap.

"So why do you want a feather?" I asked as I dried the toy off with a paper towel.

"Avalar said that eagle feathers are magic, and that I can fly if I had one," he said, looking longingly at the toy in my hand.

I reluctantly gave it back to him. Last night, I had hoped it would stay forgotten in his toy box, never to be seen again. I was wrong. Kids are like elephants; they never forget.

He went back to feeding the last of his milk to the eagle as I turned around to grab some more paper towels to clean up the mess. There was a clattering sound behind me, and I whipped around. The pendant was sitting on the table, surrounded by clumps of dirt from my Lilies. Alex was laughing.

"Ghosts aren't real," I muttered, massaging my temple, "Last night was all a dream."

I forced myself to ignore the pendant as I finished cleaning up milk.

..xoxoxoxox..

The rest of the morning routine went by smoothly, save for Alex attempting to gargle the alphabet with his mouthwash, as well as drawing a smiley-face on the mirror with his toothpaste while blaming it on the toilet bowl brush. Consequently, said brush was then dubbed "Brush-Lee" as a new addition to our "Bathroom Martial Arts Collection," joining forces with "Jackie-Chain" and "Lucy-Looroll."

Even the booster seat decided to not give me trouble today, which was a first, and we were soon on our way to the zoo. It would have been perfect, if only an idiot driving a yellow Camero had not hit another car that was carrying two elderly people. The crash was not fatal, but it resulted in a long traffic jam going either way. Sighing, I turned the car off and slumped in my seat. We were going to be here for a while. Until then, I was going to listen to the radio. A song I hadn't heard for a while, "I'll Be There for You," by The Rembrants', came on the radio. I wondered if it was possible that my car was actually a Transformer in disguise; the radio liked to automatically change stations.

Alex sat behind me, having a one-sided conversation with the die-cast eagle. I wondered if maybe it wasn't just two of us in the car, but quickly tried to push the thought away.

The radio changed songs, and I looked out my window. The sky was brightening up. I had noticed that Alex's conversation had died down, and I turned to look at him. He quickly shoved his coloring book off of his lap. The book and the felt pens tumbled to the car floor.

He was hiding something from me, I could tell.

Frowning, I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned back, picking the book up. The book was turned to a page with a picture of an eagle flying over some trees. I should have guessed Alex would be coloring in something related to eagles. But, this looked_ funny_. Compared to all of the other pictures he had colored, it was much tidier.

Had he said anything in his one-sided conversation about someone coloring in his book? I tried to remember, but could not. I closed the book and put it in the front passenger seat.

"I don't want you here," I said to the back seat next to Alex, who looked up at me with a hurt, confused expression.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to drop the book, or spill the milk this morning, or draw the smiley with…"

I felt my heart break a little; I hadn't meant for Alex to think I didn't want _him_ there.

"Alex I'm not talking to you."

He looked relieved.

"Who were you talking to, then?"

I looked at his face, not wanting to tell him I was talking to a spirit that I didn't really want to believe existed. But he knew; I knew he knew, he was just playing dumb.

"Don't worry, honey, let's just have a good day." The cars in front of me began to move, and I quickly fastened my seatbelt and started the car, "Look, we're moving!"

..xoxoxoxox..

Like everything else in Pennsylvania, The Erie Zoo was very big, and bustling with so many people; I was lucky to find a parking space. And the fee was extortionate.

_For the price it cost to get in, they better have a unicorn or something, _I thought.

As usual, Alex brought the toy eagle with us, even though I told him to leave it in the car. When he had asked why, I told him he would lose it. I was actually glad he didn't listen to me; maybe he would lose it, and we'd be done with it, and the robed, man for good. The zookeepers and lions could deal with him.

"Hurry up, Mom!" he shouted as he ran along the path leading to the Birds of Prey enclosure. He was so set on seeing an eagle that the other animals were just 'dull' and 'boring' to him. "I want to see the eagles!"

"I'm coming, hold your horses," I said. I was carrying our lunch bag with me; it weighed a lot because of the large drink bottle that I had in it. Coca-Cola had cost a lot to buy at the zoo's snack shop, so it was cheaper to just bring my own.

It turned out that the zoo's bald eagle, Arno, had died of old age the week before. Alex was heartbroken.

"Oh _wow_! Alex, come look at this gyrfalcon!" I pointed at a large, snow-white bird that was perched in its cage. I couldn't help but think it looked somewhat depressed. Alex gloomily looked up at the beautiful bird, but frowned. Not even the white falcon could cheer him up.

I got an idea when I saw a sign advertising the Bird Man's Free-Flight Bird of Prey Demonstration, and found that there was still a spot open for one last volunteer. I felt a mischievous grin tweak my lips, and I took Alex's hand.

"Let's go see some birds up close," he looked confused, but let me pull him along, "You're gonna watch your mom make a fool out of herself in front of every one," We walked into the arena.

The arena was far from being full, as the demonstration was still fifteen minutes away. A variety of different birds of prey were dutifully perched on tall posts along the arena's edge. There were two zookeepers talking to two young men, who were strapping on long leather gloves. I sat Alex in the front row with our lunch bag beside him. When I was knew I could see him and he could see me – if I was going to be maimed by a bird with sharp claws and a razor beak for the sake of his entertainment, he was going to see it!—I approached the zookeepers in the center of the arena.

The zookeepers explained our jobs as volunteers. All I had to do was wear one of those leather gloves and stand still while a gyrfalcon and a peregrine falcon landed on my outstretched arms. When the audience had filled up, a wily man with crazy gray hair strolled out into the arena. I assumed he was the Bird Man. He introduced us to the audience, and allowed each bird to perform their acrobatic tricks. When it was my turn to hold my arm out for the birds, I stood beside the keeper, and waved at Alex. He had been watching the demonstration intently, watching the falcons soar around the arena, looking pleased for the first time since he had heard of poor old Arno's death.

Just as the gyrfalcon landed roughly on my arm, a flash of white from the audience caught my attention. To my horror, the robed man was there, sitting right next to Alex in the seat where I had put our lunch bag. But before I could react, the sound of the cheering crowd, followed by a rough tug on my hair, immediately pulled me back into focus. The gyrfalcon was playfully nibbling at my hair.

When my turn was over, the zookeepers helped me remove the leather glove, and I quickly sat next to Alex. The seat that the robed man had been sitting in was now empty, save for our lunch bag. We watched as the two men who had volunteered were taking part in the vulture demonstration.

I couldn't help but feel uneasy, nervous; unsafe. It was a foreboding feeling, like something bad was going to happen.

The rest of the day went by quickly. I got to see the monkeys, and at the very end of our visit, I let Alex loose on an enormous wooden adventure fort. I knew he wouldn't be able to keep himself from exploring it from the sandy ground to the very top. I sat on a nearby bench, watching him play and feeling my eyes grow heavy. I was tired; lack of sleep over the last few days was taking its toll on me.

"Hey Monkey Boy, let's go! We only got twenty minutes before the zoo closes, and we still got to go to the gift shop!" I eventually called up to Alex, who nodded and said goodbye to some friends he had made. I watched him as he came down the snake slide, and ran to catch up to me.

When we got to the shop, the first thing he laid eyes on was a plush golden eagle, "Can I have this one?" I thought back to the die-cast eagle that he had not lost, much to my utter disappointment. Initially, I wasn't going to buy it at first but I gave in. Perhaps he would forget the die-cast eagle when he started playing with the plushie, and I would be able to throw it away.

"Did you have fun?" I asked him later, looking at him in the rear-view mirror as I was pulling out of the parking lot. He nodded and smiled a little smile before looking back out the window. He was hugging the stuffed eagle to his chest.

"Aw, Trouble, why so gloomy? Didn't you like watching me almost get maimed by those falcons?" When he didn't say anything, I frowned and turned the volume up on a tape that I had bought from the zoo; _Nature's Relaxing Sounds: Tropical Rain Forest._

"Yes, but there weren't any eagles." he sighed.

"But the other animals were cool," I offered.

"Yeah, the alligator had lots of sharp teeth and looked hungry. I bet it would be bad if it escaped into the bathtub!"

"It sure would, and the laughing hyena would make a great alarm clock!" I laughed, looking out at the passing scenery.

The ride, for the most part was quiet. I had expected Alex to fall asleep halfway home, but he held his own. We were just pulling into the neighborhood when a familiar flash of white from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I felt my heart jump into my mouth. The robed-man was sitting next to me, his face partly covered by that strange white hood. I noticed that the top of the hood came down to the bridge of his nose at a point, which oddly resembled an eagle's beak. I could feel his eyes wash over me.

All of the blood drained from my face. I stifled a cry as the sound of a screeching horn, followed by the sound of Alex's screams, jerked my attention to the road. A pair of headlights were coming at me fast, and I instinctively swerved to miss them, nearly crashing into a tree at the top of our street.


	3. Hide And Seek

The car fell silent.

I was breathing heavily, trying to swallow my heart. It was at the sound of Alex's soft cries that I jumped in my seat and whirled around. He was slumped in his booster, but otherwise looked fine. His forehead was creased, and eyes were welled with tears. I reached back and touched his knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Wasn't that fun, Trouble?" I asked him, forcing a smile. I hoped he couldn't tell how scared I really was.

But Alex was not stupid. He glared at me.

"_No_, it _wasn't!"_ Quite unexpectantly, I watched him as he lifted the die-cast eagle in his hands and threw it to the floor of the car, "Why did you do that, Mom?"

I glanced back at the empty passenger seat, where the robed man had been sitting before I ran off the road. When I looked back at Alex, he was staring at me pitifully, scowling hard.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart. I saw something that scared me and I took my eyes off the road."

"You aren't supposed to do that," he spat. Had it been under any other circumstances, I would have found it comical that my five-year-old was lecturing me on how to drive. But instead of laughing, I just squeezed his knee again, and forced another smile at him.

"I promise, I'll pay more attention next time."

"Good."

The rest of the ride was quiet, aside from Alex whispering to his toys. When I asked him what he was talking about to Avalar the Ninja Lion, he didn't answer me, which made me think that he did not want me to know.

..xoxoxox..

I noticed that a few lights were on in my house when I pulled into the driveway, and my brow furrowed. Alex and I had left for the zoo early in the day, and I most certainly would not have left the lights on. Perhaps Alex had switched them on before we left, and I hadn't noticed it?

"Alex… did you turn on any lights this morning?"

"No."

I couldn't believe I was asking my next question, "Did Avalar?"

"No, Mom, Avalar's right here."

I pushed his words away and slowly began to unbuckle my seatbelt. If I hadn't turned the lights on, and Alex hadn't turned the lights on, _who_ had?

Deciding that it was safer to leave Alex in the car and investigate myself, I rummaged through my purse and found my mini can of mace. Just before getting out of the car, I turned around in the front seat and looked at Alex.

"I'm going to go see why the lights are on, okay? I want you to stay here and _be quiet._"

He looked worried, "What's going on?"

"I've got to make sure the Boogeyman didn't come back again," he brought both hands to his mouth and gasped lightly. If only he knew how close to 'the Boogeyman' Paul really was…

"I'll tell you what… you and Avalar will play the quiet game until I come back. If Avalar says you were quiet, I'll get you a big cup of Dippin' Dots."

"Dippin' Dots!" Alex laughed briefly before cutting himself off and clapping his hands over his mouth again. I forced a grin.

"All right, ready? 1… 2… 3… quiet!"

Alex kept his hands over his mouth, and I climbed out of the car, pushing the door shut behind me. Clenching the mace in my fingers, I stepped up the front porch and into the house.

I had not known what to expect when I walked into my house; perhaps we had been burglarized, and a number of our possessions had been stolen. But when I walked into the kitchen, nothing seemed out of place, not even a piece of paper from the desk, or anything. Alex's half-eaten bowl of cereal was still sitting on the kitchen table, drops of milk from feeding it to the die-cast eagle had congealed on his placemat. My empty cup of coffee sat next to my empty bowl of what had been Corn Flakes and chunks of banana.

A sound from the living room caught my attention; the television. I could see it from behind the couch in the living room from my spot in the kitchen. Once again, it had been turned to the History channel, and was documenting something about assassins in the Middle East.

"Hassan I Sabbah died at Alamut in 1124. The Assassin order was thought to have died with him, except –"

"_Hello, Love_."

The voice sent a sharp chill down my spine. A familiar head of wavy brown hair appeared from behind the back of the couch.

"Paul… what are you doing here?"

"I came to see you, of course. Where's Alex?"

I found myself unable to speak, unable to move. I had forgotten that there was even a bottle of mace in my hand. All I could think about was that the man who was supposed to stay at least 100 yards away from me was sitting in _my_ living room, on _my_ couch, his feet propped up on _my_ table, watching _my_ television.

The only thing I could manage was a squeak, and I began backing into the kitchen.

"Rio? I asked you a question. Where's _Alex_?"

When I didn't say anything, he let out an impatient sigh, ran his fingers through his hair and stood. He was wearing a simple red t-shirt under a black jacket and a pair of stonewashed jeans. There was once a time that I thought he had been the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. An Adonis. Now, he scared me more than any werewolf mask hanging from a fuse box, or any ghost of a robed man perched on my bed at night.

_Oh God, why here? Why now? _

"Didn't your mother ever tell you to speak when you are spoken to? _Answer me_!"

It barely registered that he had even lunged for me, grabbing my wrists in his huge hands, when the can of mace clattered to the floor. I wriggled in his grasp, attempting to kick him, spit at him, _anything_ to get him to release me.

"Let go of me!" I shrieked. "Let go!"

I managed to kick at his shin, hard, and he yelped, releasing me to nurse his leg. I took the moment to race to the door, to get to the car before he knew Alex was in there.

But Paul was faster, he had run track in high school and college, and prided himself on being fast and agile. I felt his arms snake around my waist and pull me back into the kitchen. My face suddenly stung and tears welled up in my eyes; he had cuffed me in the face, and it was taking me a moment to realize how much it had _hurt._

"Stupid bitch! When will you learn to respect me? I asked you a question!" I felt his hands push me against the frame of the kitchen door, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Was he _choking_ me?

From in the distance, I could hear Alex screaming from the car. I wished I had never taught him how to use the automatic windows. Didn't he know he could get hurt?

"You can't hide forever!" Paul's voice was muffled over the sound of my struggling for air. Was I going to die? Was this what it felt like to be suffocated? "You and Alex need me!"

"We don't need you," I gasped. The world was starting to spin, my head felt light as a feather.

"_Mom!_ _MOM!"_

_Alex, stop shouting… you'll worry the neighbors…_

Paul kept applying more pressure to my throat. I was fighting for air, unsure of whether I was going to suffocate to death or suffer a broken neck first. Why did I ever get involved with a man who spent most of his time focusing on improving his body and muscle than with his family?

I was flinging my arms and legs, anything to get him off of me. I couldn't let him get the better of me, I had to be strong for Alex.

"_Avalar_!" I heard Alex.

_Why he is calling for a ghost?_

It wouldn't be until later that I recalled how ridiculous a question that was.

I heard a light rustling sound and what sounded like heavy breathing like someone had just ran a mile in a minute. Paul's hands loosened from around my neck, and he fell away and slumped to the ground, unconscious. I felt my legs give way, and I slid down the doorway in my kitchen, my vision was swimming. I needed to gather my bearings…

Alex's screams from the car sounded far, far away, as though I were dreaming. There was the sound of leather scuffing the floor, and I looked up.

_He_ was standing there; actually, he was leaning over Paul's unconscious body. His gloved hands were poking and prodding Paul, as though making sure he had been knocked out. How had he managed to do that to Paul? Wasn't it impossible for ghosts to physically touch a human being? That's what the website had said…

"_MOM!"_

Alex's yelling broke my reverie, and I fought to pull myself to my feet. Instinctively, I scrambled into the foyer and got what I called the "camping" bags, they were actually emergency bags where I kept a few changes of clothes and individually-wrapped bath condiments for times such as these, from the closet.

I wanted to call the police, but knew that it would not be long before Paul awoke. What was it that the detective had said all those months ago? To go to the closest living relative?

For now, I just had to find somewhere to go to gather my thoughts. Anywhere away from a house full of painful memories and ghosts. Rubbing my sore neck, I headed back to the car were Alex was waiting for me.

..xoxoxoxox..

I pulled up to an old Bed and Breakfast, called _The Robin's Nest_, that was tucked into a thick mass of old oak trees just off of Turnip Hill Road. The three-story colonial looked rather menacing in the fading sunlight, with the gnarled trees nearly hiding it completely. But the lights were on, and it looked rather safe.

I had decided that I had to postpone going out and getting a new, easier-to-use booster seat for Alex. I made him sit in the front seat for the very first time after grabbing the "camping" bags. I felt comforted knowing he was right next to me. He had fallen asleep during the drive, and I had to be careful when extracting him from the seat belt so that he wouldn't wake up.

The lady at the front desk had been very nice when I asked for a single room, even offering one of the younger men in her staff, a pimply boy who looked like he was still in high school, to help me bring our bags in.

I let Alex sleep in the large king-sized bed under what looked like a very warm quilt, and quickly showered while he napped. He was still sleeping when I came back, and I decided that I would try to sleep as well.

But sleep evaded me. I had too much on my mind, and could not help but think back to the robed man, and how Alex had called for him.

Maybe Alex was right; maybe he really wouldn't hurt us.

_He is a ghost, Rio. A ghost. A shell. He's dead. He doesn't exist anymore…_

But Alex…

I really needed a cigarette.

Though the last time I had really smoked, it had been almost six months ago when I moved from the very nice and affordable apartment that Paul had quickly broken every window in, to the house by Lake Erie. I had never been much for smoking, but there were times that it felt like my teeth were on edge, and I had to relieve it.

Did I ever keep the pack I bought last time?

I reached into my bag and rummaged around. That was my shirt to wear for tomorrow, that was my travel-size deodorant, that was…

My fingers found something cold and hard at the bottom of my bag. Instinctively, I yanked my hand out, pulling out the pendent.

I definitely had not put it there, earlier.

How had it gotten there?

I heard the sound of a loud _thump! a_gainst the balcony railing outside; like something had just landed there.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the familiar white robes through the window. _He_ was there, crouching on the railing balanced perfectly still like a cat. I watched him closely for a few moments before I blinked, and he was gone.

Where did he go when he disappeared like that? Why was he always silent when he did appear? What did he think about when he appeared to us? I could never tell; the hood always covered his eyes.

..xoxoxoxox..

I woke very early the next morning to Alex shaking my shoulder. He had had a dream that the Boogeyman had chased us from the house and was standing outside the door in a bunny suit. After reassuring him that there was no one outside our door, I got him dressed and ready to leave.

My best bet was to stay with my parents while I called the police to figure out what to do about Paul. I was sure that the restraining order was still in effect, but the chance that it had expired was always there, and I was not taking any chances of him harming Alex, should we stay nearby. The last time I had done this, I had been told to go stay with the closest relative I could trust. Unfortunately, that was a four and a half hour drive east, to Salem, Massachusetts, where my parents and younger sister lived.

But if it meant keeping Alex safe, I would do anything.

I left Alex playing with his toys in the Bed and Breakfast foyer when I dialed my parents' number, hoping that I hadn't woken anyone up. I was sure that I hadn't, it was seven in the morning on the East Coast, and my mother was usually an early bird, but there was always the chance she could have slept in.

"Hello?" Good. My mom didn't sound tired; I hadn't woken her up.

"Mom?"

"_Mi preciosa! _I didn't recognize the number on the Call I.D! How good it is to here from you!"

"Well, I just spent the night at this Bed and Breakfast at the edge of town…"

I could tell by the silence on her end that she knew what I was going to say from the tone of my voice. For a brief moment, I felt horrible about barging in on her. But I had my son to think about.

"Do you need to come here for a little while? Fix things up?"

I internally breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't going to make me say it.

"Yeah, Alex and I… we are going to have to stay with you for a while."

She was quiet for another moment.

"Paul found you, didn't he?" Her voice was slow and calm, but defensive. I nodded, even though I knew that she couldn't see me.

"He did."

"_Aye de mí_, well get here, and get here _safely_. I'll be waiting for you."

"Thank you," I felt relief wash over me, and I glanced at Alex, who had grown tired of making the little die-cast eagle fly over the bald head of a sleeping old man on one of the foyer couches, and was now making his stuffed eagle dance.

"I'll see you when you get here. Love you."

"Love you too, Mom."

The phone clicked abruptly, and I sighed, rubbing my temples. While I was sure she did not really mind Alex and I staying, I was sure she wished we would visit under better circumstances. Never had I ever felt more horrible about seeing my mother in my life.

Alex sat down beside me.

"Are we going to see Nan?" he asked.

"We sure are," I nodded and ruffled his hair.

"Can Avalar come?" he looked at a fish tank. I was starting to wonder if Alex could see the robed man all the time. But I wasn't as nervous and scared around the ghost as I was at first. I felt like I could perhaps trust him, knowing that he had stopped Paul from suffocating me.

We left the Bed and Breakfast after paying for our room, and began the long drive to Massachusetts.

..xoxoxoxox..

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived in Salem. I smiled at the familiar tree-lined streets and colonial architecture.

I had been born here, and went to school here until I was nine, when my father's job in the history department at the local community college sent our family to live in England, where he taught archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge. We lived in a little town called Ely until I was sixteen, when my father's job at the University moved us back to the States.

That was when I met Paul.

Despite the hardships, this town was my home.

My father's side of the family had been living here since it was founded. One of his ancestors had even been Daniel Andrew, who had evaded arrest after being accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. My father never grew tired of telling that story, and always joked that our family to be _magical_, for the lack of a better term.

My mother, on the other hand, was born in Puerto Rico, and raised in a military family. Her father retired from the army and settled here in Salem when she was ten. She always told me that she never really liked it here, winter always came in the middle of October and was always bitter cold, but I guess over the years, it grew on her.

My parents were constantly badgering me about Alex knowing his "witchy" heritage, which had been the reason why I had moved to the little lakeside house in Pennsylvania. The odd family history in Salem had always somewhat unnerved me. Even more now, given the experience I had had in the last few days with the paranormal and the downright strange.

It was rush hour in Salem, though rush hour here was not anything like it had been in Boston, in which it _always_ seemed like it was rush hour. There were more cars there than there were back home in Erie.

We were about ten minutes away from my parents' house when I decided to stop at the Village Food Shop to pick up some snacks and goodies so that Alex would not end up eating my parents out of house and home.

I parked my car in the old parking lot, taking notice of how little had changed since I had last been there, and helped Alex out of his booster. I held his hand as we walked through the cars and the shoppers.

"Mom, are we going to see any witches at Nan's house?" Alex asked he hopped onto the sidewalk, and we went through the automatic doors. I looked down and smiled at him.

"Maybe, you never know!"

His face went solemn and he squeezed my hand. I was about to hug him, to tell him I was only kidding, when I noticed that he was holding out his other hand, the one not holding mine, and his fingers were curled around nothing but air. It almost looked as though he was _holding an invisible hand_. I tried to push the thought out of my mind.

Partly because he had asked, and partly because I didn't want to watch him holding any invisible hands, I let him carry the shopping basket. We walked up and down the aisles, picking up a few snacks and goodies. He quickly got tired of carrying the basket, however, and left the basket-carrying job to me, while he handled the 'more daunting' task of carrying a bag of Fritos, which were his favourite chips.

I was standing in line at one of the counters when a familiar voice called my name.

"Rio!" it was an old woman behind another counter. She was short, with curly white hair and big glasses. I quickly recognized her to be Flo, a good friend of my mother's.

"Hi Flo," I greeted, walking back to her line.

"Long time, no see!"

"I know, it's been a few years," I laughed, trying to sound genuinely excited. The truth was, I was tired and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.

Flo leaned over the counter, eyeing Alex and grinning broadly. The last time I had seen her, she had a few missing teeth. Now, I was sure the ones that she smiled with were dentures.

"Oh my!" she gushed at him. He darted behind me and was peeking out at her from behind my leg. She must have startled him, "Is that Alex? He's gotten so big and handsome!"

"That sure is, my little man," I replied as I began placing my purchases on the counter, trying to coax Alex to let me quickly pay for his Fritos as I did so.

Flo quickly began ringing up my snacks, and was careful to hand Alex his chips back to him as soon as he had relinquished them to me so I could pay the $1.15 for them.

"How has life in Pennsylvania been treating you?" She asked, dropping my bag of Doritos into a paper sack.

I nodded, "Been good, good. Been busy. We just moved to a lake house, right on Lake Erie. It's so beautiful out there."

"That's $9.57."

I handed her a ten-dollar bill, and told her to keep the change.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to get to my mother's house."

Flo handed me my bags and chirped a happy, 'See you later!' as I took Alex's hand and let him back to the car.

..xoxoxoxox..

Alex's brow was knit tightly together at his stuffed eagle sitting in the car seat beside him, as though he was thinking about something very hard. I wrestled him into his seat and pried open his bag of Fritos.

"What's wrong, Trouble?" I asked him, taking one of the salty chips out and popping it into my mouth. I held back a cringe, I forgot how much I hated those things.

"Mom, where is Acre?"

Acre? I knew of a standard of measurement called an acre, but I had never heard of it as anything more than that. I shrugged and handed him the bag of chips.

"It's in Egypt, or something, why?"

"Oh," he looked down at his stuffed eagle and crunched on a chip. I frowned at him, but shut his door and climbed into the car.

I pulled the car out into the parking lot and began toward my parents' house, coincidentally on Witchcraft Road.

"Mom?" Alex managed through a mouthful of chips. I glanced at him in the rear-view mirror.

"What?"

"How do you know where we're going? Aren't we going to get lost?"

"Because fairies live here, and they tell me where to go."

I grinned wickedly at him in the rear-view mirror as I pulled to a stop behind a sedan at a stop light in front of an old craft shop. I was hoping that the fairy story would get some kind of cheerful reaction from my unusually quiet son, but it appeared as though he wasn't listening to me. He was staring intently at the old hippy woman that owned the craft supplies store, who was gazing back at him through the window.

"What's she looking at?" I grumbled, glaring at her from the driver's seat. I begged the light to change sooner. "Has she never seen a car before or something?"

"Mom she can see Avalar," Alex whispered. I turned in my seat and looked back at him, but the grey pickup behind me blasted his horn. The light had turned green. I tried to push Alex's words out of my mind, and turned onto Puritan Road.

My parents' two-story cape cod came into view at the very end of Witchcraft Road. I felt my heart begin to speed up, but swallowed the nervous feeling. The truth was, I was dreading what things my mother would say to me when I arrived at her house in such a dishevelled state.

I pulled the car into the driveway, listening to the wind rustle the wind chime from the front porch, and grabbed the groceries before setting them on top of the car and began wrestling Alex from his seat.

"_Alejandro_!" my mother's sudden call from the front door startled me.

"Nan!" Alex called back. He tried to run toward her, but I held him by the wrist, making sure I brushed off all of the Fritos crumbs before he could go hug her.

Alex always got the first hello from her.

When he was brushed completely off, I watched him as he ran up to her, telling her all about our 'adventure.' Reluctantly, I grabbed the stuffed eagle from the backseat before taking it and the groceries inside.

The house had changed quite a bit since I had last been here. Mom had painted the porch railings a pale off-white. The porch swing was still there, but had been recently painted a gloomy blue colour, and instead of the carved Halloween pumpkins flanking the front door there was a pair of fake potted palm trees.

A breeze picked up as I stepped onto the porch – it, too, had been painted a gloomy blue colour to contrast the white of the house – sending the wind chime into a startlingly loud song. I jumped and looked up at it. Nothing happened and the wind died down. I took a few more moments to watch it before just squaring my shoulders and opening the door, which greeted by the smell of peppermint and cinnamon when I opened it.

I noticed something out of place when I stepped into the front hall. A strange headdress, it looked much like a wolf's skull decorated with tribal feathers and beads, was sitting placidly on the small table that my mother kept the telephone. It was very familiar, but I could not quite put my finger on where I had seen it.

"Mom, were did you get _that_?" I asked as I brought the grocery bags into the kitchen. She was standing over Alex, pouring him a cup of milk at the table.

"Oh, that old thing? Your father found it at the dig in Syria last month." The little die-cast eagle sat on the placemat beside him, its little beak turned in his direction as though he were having tea with Alex. My mother picked it up from the table and examined it closely.

That sounded much like my father, the good Andrew Bryer. After he decided that just teaching anthropology and archaeology was 'suffocating' his career, he decided to abandon the world of academia, and went on to his true passion: digging in the dirt. The Lord knew what things he had probably buried in his sandbox when he was a child…

"So he's in Syria? That's interesting."

"Oh yes, he's enjoying it. Took Farley with him while she is on summer break. It's been just me and Gallagher for the last month."

Farley was my younger sister, who was just about to enter her senior year in high school. It was no doubt she was going to follow in our father's footsteps and go into archaeology. Gallagher was my mother's unusually ill-tempered Egyptian Mau. She had gotten him during a trip to Egypt for her and my father's anniversary two years ago. I wouldn't mind the cat if he wasn't so temperamental. I wondered where he had stolen off to…

"Doesn't it kind of… creep you out?" I asked, glancing back at the headdress from the kitchen door. She shrugged and began putting my groceries away.

"_Sí, _every once in a while when I forget it's there when I walk by. For some reason, your father thought it would make a nice present for me. But Gallagher doesn't like it, he keeps attacking it whenever he's in the house, so I'm going to take it to the University. See what they can do with it. Where did you get this?" she held up the little eagle in her hand, "It looks very old."

"We found it in a box in the basement! I thought a big dragon was going to swallow me up, but I was brave and got the box before it could!"

"_Qué fascinante!"_ she gushed, putting the eagle back on the table. "Does he have a name?"

"His name is Avalar!"

"I thought your new imaginary friend was Avalar…" I began.

"My dragon's name is Avalar, too!" He took another sip of milk, "And he's _not_ imaginary. He's just invisible!"

Both my mother and I laughed, but I couldn't help but hear how forced I must have heard. My mother didn't think anything of it as she ruffled Alex's hair.

I turned around to grab the rest of our bags from the car. As I passed by the headdress again, I picked it up to get a better look at it. Where had I seen it before? A very cold shiver raced down my spine, nearly chattering my teeth. There was most definitely a presence lingering behind me, but when I turned back all I saw was Alex telling my mother all about his new friend.

"Go away," I whispered quietly to whatever it was that lingered where I could not see it. This presence was not anything like the one from the robed man; this one was cold and foreboding. A sense of evil seemed to radiate from the mask, so I quickly put it down and went to the car for our bags.

_This is so strange. Nothing makes sense any more._

Dad called the house to say hello an hour after I had stuffed the bags in the corner of my old room. I could hear my sister laughing playfully in the background, followed by my dad grumbling about her spending too much time with the local boys than at the dig. I got a good laugh out of it, telling him that my sister was probably boy-crazy, but not stupid; she wouldn't do anything dumb.

..xoxoxoxox..

We had pizza that evening, and Mom put Alex to bed promptly at 9 o'clock. I always wondered how she managed to do that whenever we came to visit; Alex never wanted to sleep for me. Mom said it was because she kept a dreamcatcher over my bed, and she made him make a wish on the beads before going to sleep. Of course, this was after he had convinced her to read him a story about gryphons.

I found Alex sprawled across my old bed when I finally decided it was time for me to sleep as well. It was strange sleeping in my old room, my mother had kept it exactly as I had left it, and it appeared she regularly dusted it as well. It was like I was living in my own memories.

When I had shut off the light and crawled under the covers, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. The robed man was sitting on the window seat, his eyes trained on the world outside. I wanted to shake him from my mind, but found myself unable to. Just why was he following me? What was he looking at?

Another part of me wanted to say something to him, but I didn't for fear of waking up Alex. Instead, I just watched him in silence.

A moment passed before he turned to look at me, his face completely hidden by that damn hood. I thought I could sense the ghost of a smile on his face (no pun intended) but was not sure. All I knew was I had to sleep, I was so tired. That was the last thing I saw before I nodded off.


	4. Tag Your It

_From everywhere around me, I could hear the rhythmic beating of drums. I was in that temple, again, surrounded by the strange women wearing the animal skull-headdresses. Most of the women were silent, standing alone, separate from each other. But a few were talking. One woman wearing a gold dress and fine jewelry, judging by her voice I figured she couldn't be more than sixteen, turned to me._

"_Why so pale, Seri? The Matriarch has done this many, many times before…" she said, taking a few slow steps toward me. Her voice was muffled behind her strange headdress; this one looked like it was the skull of a jackal. _

_Seri? Who was Seri?_

_Though I could have sworn that she was talking to me, I realized when she walked right by me and kept talking that she was actually talking to a person standing behind me. I was going to just brush off the rude gesture, when I heard the voice of whom she was talking to._

"_This… this is not right."_

_I turned around at the voice and stopped, almost having to do a double-take when I saw the face of who had just spoken. Was that… _me_? Was I having an out-of-body experience?_

_It was as though I were looking into a mirror; the woman behind me looked just like me, but was wearing a long, white linen dress and silver jewelry. In her hands, she was holding a cow's skull adorned with silver beads._

_This was stranger than I could handle._

"_It may not be 'right,' Sister, but there is not anything you can do about it. The Matriarch's word is final. He is to suffer in an eternal damnation. A fate worse than death itself." _

"_And for what _reason_ is he to suffer like this? For falling in love? It is_ wrong,_ Hanan," the woman called Seri spoke furiously, spitting her words out at her companion as though they were a bad taste in her mouth. I could hear the tell-tale sound of tears in her voice. _

"_It is the law," The woman wearing the jackal's skull, Hanan, said coldly as she walked passed me and began toward the altar. She brushed against my shoulder roughly as she passed by, but she seemed to not notice it._

"_So cold-hearted," I heard Seri whisper to herself as she followed in Hanan's footsteps. I followed them over to the altar. There stood whom I assumed was this 'Matriarch,' holding what looked like to a small staff or wand made of silver and bone in her left hand, and a strange amulet in her right. I froze. The amulet she held was actually the pendant that had been in the box beneath the house! The Matriarch was gazing intently at her audience of women dressed in mostly white linen and different animal skulls. There was a loud crashing sound, as though a stone door had been unceremoniously been flung open, and two women wearing lion skulls came in. I thought the dream was going to end there, like the last time, but it didn't. _

_In their hands between them, they dragged the man in the white robes. His cloak and boots scraped loudly against the stone ground, and his head was bent horribly low. He was weak, too weak to fight back. The blood from his fresh, ripe wounds dripped onto the dusty ground. It was almost as if the blood was dripping to the rhythm of the drums._

_They threw the man onto the stone altar before the Matriarch. She lifted her arms and looked up at the ceiling, chanting something in a strange language._

..xoxoxo..

A loud bang jolted me awake.

I glanced around my room, eyeing my old alarm clock on my nightstand. It was ten o'clock in the morning. From the kitchen downstairs, over the sound of her salsa music, I could hear my mother swearing in Spanish. I tried to replay the sound that had woken me up in my head, and thought she must have dropped a bowl.

From somewhere outside, I could hear Alex laughing loudly. I flopped back down onto my bed and stared around. I saw a glint of light from the window seat and sat up, squinting. The pendant was there, sparkling in the sunshine; it looked as though it had been deliberately placed in the small gap between my curtains.

I got out of bed and opened the curtains, peering out at the sunny day outside. Alex was running around the backyard. Enjoying the calmness of the morning, I got dress and headed downstairs.

"_Buenas días_," my mother greeted. She was sweeping up pieces of glass into the dustpan, "Sleep well?"

"The crash woke me up," I said, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and taking a bite.

She smiled at me and dumped some of the glass into the trashcan, "I thought it would have."

"You _deliberately_ smashed it?"

"Hey, whether or not I did it on purpose is on a 'need-to-know basis,'" she leaned over and swept up a few of the remaining pieces that had decided to not get swept up with the rest of the broken bowl, "…and you don't need to know," she chuckled to herself. Obviously, my mother thought she was funny.

"_Eres loca,_" I muttered under my breath, knowing perfectly well that she knew I was calling her crazy.

She returned her broom and dustpan to the utility room and sat down next to me at the table, "I'm going to take Alex to the museum today. I think he'll really like the interactive displays."

"Oh I know he will."

"Want to come with us?"

I shook my head. I never like the museum. It was littered with statues of 'witches' that generally scared me. It always felt like they were watching me.

"No, it will be nice to have a few hours to myself. Just make sure he doesn't wander off," I said as I got up to pour myself some coffee.

I never understood why my mother insisted on feeding the cat on the counter. It wasn't like she had a dog that would steal any of the cat food, or anything. As I approached the cupboard where my mother kept the coffee mugs, (incidentally it was the cupboard over his bowl) I could hear Gallagher begin to growl lowly at me, his large green eyes staring me down. I reached out to stroke his head in order to calm him, when the Egyptian Mau hissed at me rather viciously and took a swipe. I leapt back.

"Gallagher!" my mother yelled. The cat hissed in her direction and darted off the countertop and into the living room. We watched his retreat in surprise before she spoke up again, "_El gato loco._ He must really not like you or something; he's been acting very strange since you arrived. He wasn't even that irritable when it was just me, him, and that mask."

The back door opened and Alex sulked in. He was covered in mud from head to toe. I walked over to him and knelt beside him.

"Alex! What on earth happened?"

He sniffled, "I was playing in the trees at the end of the yard, and I slipped off a log and fell in the mud," He attempted to wipe his face, which only resulted in him spreading more of it around. I stood and grabbed some paper towels to wipe it away from his eyes.

"What were you doing on a log?" my mother asked.

"I was playing with Avalar. He was showing me how to be a ninja," Alex said, grimacing as I wiped the mud away. I glanced out the window as I went to throw the paper towel away. The ghost was nowhere to be found.

"You're not hurt are you?" I asked him. He shook his head, "Good."

"I'll get him cleaned up and ready to go to the museum," my mother bent over to look at him eye to eye, "Would you like that?"

He immediately cheered up, "Yeah!"

She grunted when she picked him up, despite getting mud on her clothes. As she walked out of the kitchen, I heard her say that she did not like this 'Avalar' character too much; that he seemed like a lot of trouble. I couldn't help but agree with her, at least a little bit.

An hour later, Alex had been cleaned up and I had finished my coffee. He was bouncing off of the walls in excitement about his day trip out to the museum with his Nan. I couldn't help but laugh at his antics as he continued to question my mother as to the different types of displays and exhibits he would be able to see. I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up an article in last month's _Cosmopolitan_, having brushed my hair and gotten dressed, when my mother came in to grab her car keys on the table. She planted a kiss on my cheek.

"_Escucháme,_" she said, her fingers guiding the bottom of my chin to look at her, "Don't forget to call the police about…" she glanced at Alex in the foyer, talking to the die-cast eagle, "… about the Boogeyman."

I nodded, "I won't, Mom. I was going to call as soon as Alex was out the door. He doesn't need to hear any of this."

She smiled and kissed my cheek again, "That's my girl. Well, we'll be back in a few hours. I might take him to the park after the museum to run off some steam. Have fun taking the day for yourself."

"I will. Have fun, Mom."

As she was ushering Alex out, I heard him ask her if Avalar would be allowed to join them, however the door had shut before I could hear her answer. I sighed to myself. My mother was beginning to grow suspicious of this Avalar character. Though I was sure she had not thought anything of it at first, he was beginning to talk more and more about this friend of his, and she was beginning to notice something. Had he really fallen off that log earlier in the morning? Or had he just made that all up?

The house was overcome with silence, save for the sound of my mother's clock ticking in the living room. Silence. This was a sound I had not heard in a long time. With Alex, there was constant question-answering, constant playing, constant chattering, and constant moving; there was consistency. Now I was sitting in a house with nothing to do and no one to persistently ask questions and chat with me. It made me feel uncomfortable. I frowned at the kitchen table.

I was just about to stand up to grab the number for the detective in order to call him when a crash sounded through the house, followed by a yowl. I followed the sound to the foyer, where Gallagher had was skittering out, the mask lying on the ground in his wake. Apparently, he had pulled the mask _and_ the phone from the table.

"Cat," I scolded, bending over and picking up the telephone to put it back on the table, "You are insane sometimes."

I heard him hiss at me from beneath the couch, and shrugged it off, turning to the mask lying on the floor. A big part of me hadn't wanted to pick it up and put it back, but I knew that if I hadn't it would probably get broken and my mother would be unable to send it to the University.

_Better pick it up, I guess. I can't just leave it there._

If evil was a snake, I'm sure I would have seen it coiling through the mask's eyes and mouth. Though I had told myself to move and pick it up, my body wouldn't listen. There was just _something_ wrong with the mask that scared the life out of me, but I wasn't sure what.

_It's just a mask, just pick it up and put it on the table. Won't take more than a few seconds, at most._

Reluctantly, I grabbed the mask from the floor and made to put it on the table, but stopped. As I held it in my hands, I felt the mask grow cold, like stone or ice. Like death. There were whispers all around me, too, hundreds of them. Some sounded like names, others sounded like full phrases. I definitely couldn't hear them all, nor understand them all.

"You want me to… put it on?"

I was talking to the mask, though a part of me kept telling myself that it was a crazy thing to do. The mask wouldn't talk back, of course.

But the voices whispering around me could, and although I couldn't understand anything they were saying, I knew what they were telling me to do.

It was as though someone was guiding my hands to my face, and with ease, I slipped the mask over my head. A heaviness fell over me, like someone was draping a heavy blanket around me. And the world went dark.

_Dear Lord, what have I done? _

_..xoxoxo.._

_**"A debitum cunctator can exsisto restituo ut quicumque est lost reverto."**_

_The monotone voices were many, as though a chorus in a cathedral. Over and over again, the voices chanted words I could not understand._ _I opened my eyes. The world looked like the color had been drained from it. It was dull, like I was in a black-and-white movie. _

_I forced myself to stand up, and had to rub my eyes in disbelief. I could literally see the air rippling around me. It was a strange sensation, as though I had ingested mushrooms, or something, and was seeing the after-effects._

_Everything I noticed was silent. I was standing in a silent black-and-white film, or so it felt. I could see Gallagher stalking around in the living room. When he saw me, his ears went flat against his head and lips curled back, baring his sharp little teeth. I couldn't hear it, but I knew he was hissing._

_The silence was beginning to hurt my ears. It nearly drowned out the sounds I could hear: my own breathing and those damned chanting voices. I covered my ears and began through the front hallway and into the kitchen to the back door. There was a figure, a woman, sitting Indian-style on top of the garden table, hands folded neatly in lap. Whoever she was, she was meditating. _

_Her long, sandy-colored hair covered her face, preventing me from seeing it. She wore a tanned leather vest and leggings, and black leather boots. _

A debitum cunctator can exsisto restituo ut quicumque est lost reverto_, the voices chanted again._

_The meditating woman looked up at me, finally, her hair swaying away from her face. I recognized her as the girl who had looked no older than sixteen, the girl that had defended the decided fate of the man in the white robes. She stared long and hard at me, her eerie amber-colored eyes locked with mine. I squirmed under her intense gaze._

"_I wondered when you would visit me, Seri," she._

_My brow furrowed. Couldn't she tell? I'm Rio, not Seri! _

"_They would have found out sooner or later, foolish Seri. They could have –and would have—Trapped you both, but it is always better for just one to suffer, than for many. Mother has always been so forgiving." _

"_How do I leave this place?" I asked._

_She laughed at me, "You can leave once you have_ learned_."_

"_Learned_ what_, exactly?"_

"_Until you have learned what I have to teach," she smirked at me. I clenched my jaw in annoyance. She was talking in riddles, getting me nowhere, and all I wanted to do was go home. I glared at her. She leaned forward and squinted at me, as though trying to read my mind. A flicker of recognition flashed across her eyes, and she squared her shoulders again, "Oh. I see now. You are not Seri. But it is strange, you are so much alike." _

_I turned back toward the kitchen door and walked back inside. If she wasn't going to help me, then it was probably best that I tried to figure it out on my own. _

_I froze when I stepped into the kitchen. The girl was no longer meditating on the garden table. Suddenly, she was in front of me, leaning against the door frame of the kitchen, arms folded tightly around herself. _

"_You have to listen; I am only going to say this once. The item you need to free Altaïr… it is in the desert, sealed in the chamber where _the real Seri_ was laid to rest after…" her voice trailed off as her arms unraveled themselves from around her body. She stared at the floor, "Seri… she couldn't live without him even though she was spared her life. It… it was all my fault…" _

_She didn't finish her sentence, just continued staring at the floor, her arms hung listlessly at her sides. There was no way that this girl was mentally stable._

"_The dreams are the clues, remember them," she looked up at me again. "Use them. Seri… she is trying to help you. Do not ignore her."_

I felt myself falling. Colors and sounds—how I never thought I would be so happy to see the mundane color of sunshine pouring into my window and of the neighbor's dog's incessant barking—rushed back to me in a single, dizzying moment.

I stumbled and flopped against the foyer wall, the mask still in my hands. What had just happened to me?

A searing pain whipped through my head, and I dropped the mask to the floor. Perhaps I should just forget calling the detective, for now. I could call him later. I needed to go lay down.

..xoxoxo..

"And the bad men with the swords didn't even _see_ the eagle?"

There were two voices. One was telling a story, and the other was listening. I could tell that the one listening was Alex; he was giggling and gasping and adding in his own bits and pieces as the other voice continued. I was glad to hear his voice, it was comforting. However, I couldn't recognize the voice telling the story.

"No. The eagle just took off into the air like a whisper on the breeze."

It was a male's voice; soft, toneless, calm. I'd heard it before, it felt like ages ago, but I couldn't place my finger exactly when it was that I had heard it.

_There's no way that Dad and Farley are back from the dig yet, they just got there,_ I told myself.

I tried to open my eyes, but found it hard to do. My head, it hurt so badly. Even the little light from my old bedside lamp shining through my eyelids made my skull want to burst. I resorted to listening.

"So what happened to the eagle?" Alex asked.

"Another night, Alexander," the voice responded, just above a whisper. Alex pouted and tried to resist, but the voice mumbled something in response that quieted Alex's protests.

I finally convinced my eyes to open, regardless of the pain that the light brought them, and I looked around. Alex was sitting next to me, back completely erect and hands folded diligently in his lap, dressed in what appeared to be brand new Buzz Lightyear pajamas. God bless my mother. He wasn't looking at me, in fact I don't think he was even aware I was awake, but instead was staring at the window. From behind Alex's head, I could see the man in the white robes crouched on the window seat, balanced perfectly still.

Much to my surprise, his hood had been lowered, draping elegantly around the nape of his shoulder blades. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

He had very short dark hair, and sullen, honey-colored eyes that peered back at my son under a pair of thick eyebrows and very long eyelashes. Although it had been hard to see it with his hood drawn, there was a very thin, but definitive, scar that ran vertically over the right side of his mouth; it marred the obvious five o'clock stubble that grew along his thin jaw line.

He… he was so _young_. A _baby_, almost.

I tried to look away from his face before he could see that I was awake—I didn't want him to disappear again—but he caught sight of me and quickly flipped his hood up, sending a shadow over his features. It was much easier to see the resemblance of an eagle in the hood's point over his forehead.

Alex turned around and smiled at me, wrapping his arms around my neck.

"You're awake!" he chirped, planting a big, wet kiss on my cheek.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping, Trouble?" I joked, hugging him back. It felt good to have my son back in my arms. He smelled like shampoo and soap; obviously, Mom had gotten him washed up and ready for bed.

Alex pointed at the hooded man, who seemed to have found the hardwood floor suddenly very interesting. When Alex said his name, his head jerked up, "Avalar was telling me a story about an eagle that saved a princess! It was such a good story! Will you tell it to my mom, Avalar?"

"Another night, Alexander," he said quietly, avoiding my gaze.

"No! Please? Just a little bit! I promise I won't make you ride in the car anymore, so you won't get dizzy!"

I could sense a hint – just a hint—of amusement in his face, but I couldn't see it. The little bit of his face I could see remained emotionless, stoic, still as stone.

"Fine, I'll tell," Alex turned to me, "There was this princess in a faraway land, and her name was Princess Seri, and she was the most beautiful princess anyone had ever—"

_Seri. She couldn't live without him even though she had been spared her life. _

The name echoed in my head, swirled, spun in circles like a merry-go-round. I blinked at Alex, trying to focus on his words, trying to look like I was listening, but all I could hear was the sound of that woman's voice.

…_would have Trapped you both, but it is always better for just one to suffer, than for many._

"Seri…" I muttered, brow furrowing against the pain of the light in my eyes. Alex's eyes narrowed at me, and he tapped my hand.

"Yes, the princess's name is Seri, Mom, but I'm not talking about the princess anymore, I'm talking about the eagle!"

"Who's Seri?" I asked, ignoring his lecturing and looking up at the robed man who was now staring at the ground, as though he were trying to pretend that he wasn't there.

"I told you, Mom, Seri is—"

"I can't tell you." The man's soft voice brought Alex's to a sudden halt, and Alex turned around in his spot on the bed. I could tell from the sound of Alex's voice that he was scowling hard.

"You just told me this story, Avalar! Seri is the princess!"

What had the girl in the dream called the robed man? All-tar-rawr? All-tah-tah? I couldn't remember. It had been an exotic name, one that I'd never heard before. One that certainly didn't feel comfortable coming out of my mouth.

The robed man looked like he was wordlessly trying to calm Alex, who proceeded to try and explain the 'long, long story' that 'Avalar' had just finished telling him, which was why he was dumb for having forgotten it before he could tell me. I finally took Alex's shoulder in my hand, and turned him to face me, "Alex, hush," I looked up at the robed man before Alex could argue, "I want to know who Seri is, and I want to know why I'm having dreams about her. Most importantly, I want to know why _you _are following me and my son everywhere—Alex, I said _hush."_

His hooded face turned away from me, as though he were pretending that he hadn't heard me. This made me feel inexplicably angry. My son was five years old, and was constantly pretending that he hadn't heard me when he didn't like what I had to say. I most certainly wasn't going to take this from a grown man, no matter how young and handsome he looked. He was avoiding my question, no doubt. And I was not going to have it.

"_Look at me, All-tire,_" I growled. This got a sudden reaction out of him. Almost too sudden. The movement of his head from when it had been looking out the window to when it had been turned to me was almost instantaneous. A blur. If it weren't for the fact that there was a definite change in the direction of his hood, I wouldn't have been able to tell he had even moved his head at all. After a pause, he spoke.

"_Altaïr. _My name is _Altaïr," _he pronounced the name slowly, thoroughly, and with a hint of annoyance.

All-ta-ir. What a strange, strange name. I would be annoyed too, if I had to constantly correct people in the pronunciation.

"_Whatever the hell your name is,_ you have to tell me. _Who_ the hell is this Seri girl, and _why _the hell am I having dreams about her?" I shouted, "_And why the hell do you keep following us?"_

Alex gasped at the curse word. I blinked at the anger boiling in my blood. I heard a door down the hallway open, followed by the sound of her footsteps and a sharp rap on my door.

"Rio_, mi hija, _who are you shouting at? It's one in the morning..." her voice sounded muffled from the other side of the door.

One in the morning? Had I really been sleeping for nearly a day straight?

Alex was looking at me with big eyes. I glanced at him before taking another quick glance at the window seat. It was empty. Gone. He had vanished. I was torn between feeling even more angry, and feeling sad. Why did he always have to disappear like that?

…_in the desert, sealed in the chamber where _the real Seri_ was laid to rest after…_

I sighed, massaging my forehead with my fingers, "No one, Mom, I'm sorry. I just… had a nightmare. Can you come in for a second? I need to ask you something."

The door opened, and my mother walked in, retying her robe. She looked at me blearily.

"What is it?"

"Syria, it's in a desert, right?"

"Of course."

_Perhaps this wasn't just a coincidence…_

"Do you think Dad's invitation to the dig is still open?"

* * *

'a debitum cunctator can exsisto restituo ut quicumque est lost reverto' 

This phrase was written in rough latin, and its so hard to find a web translation that has it meaning the same on all the sites, but some of the words did get lost in translation.

the english translation ------ 'a debt delayed must be repaid when all that is lost returns.'


	5. Lions Den

I laid the phone on the opened phone book in front of me and closed my eyes; a headache was working its way to the front of my head.

It had been a busy morning. As soon as I woke up, I called the detective, Mr. Evers, back home in Pennsylvania, to file a report on Paul's appearance at the house. Not daring to tell him it had been because I had slept through most of the previous day, I explained to him that it had been a combination of forgetfulness and my drive to Salem that had caused me to take so long to file the report. Of course, this ended in his lecturing me about waiting so long, and how Paul was probably long gone now. Regardless, he promised to have the situation checked out.

After that, I contacted my father's former colleagues at Cambridge University, who had commissioned him to the dig. They agreed to arrange my transportation to Syria, however it took a good deal of convincing to get them to arrange Alex to travel with me. It also took a good deal of convincing my mother as well, as I knew that she didn't want me to take Alex. What she did not know was that I _had _to take him; there was no way I could help the ghost (_My name is Altaïr_, the words kept echoing in my mind) without him. He was so in touch with Altaïr that it would be nearly impossible for me to even know where to begin.

The University representative explained that our flight would be leaving Logan International Airport in two days, and we would have do a rollover in France before taking our final flight to the Damascus International Airport. The flight was going to be a very, very long one, so I was instructed to bring a lot of things to entertain myself and Alex. They must have sensed my frustration at such a long flight, as they decided to compensate me by booking me first class. I supposed it could have been worse.

I could feel the headache grow even worse, and knew that I needed to clear my head. Everything that had happened in the past few days was so overwhelming, and all my thoughts were a jumbled mess. My ex-fiancée was stalking me, my neighbour who saw me wielding a knife at an invisible man probably thought I was crazy, my son and I were being followed by a very handsome but very dangerous-looking ghost, and now I was catching trans-Atlantic flights to the middle east to dig in the dirt.

Perhaps I was going crazy, after all; perhaps I had been imagining this ghost the whole time. He had refused to show himself this morning, even when I had put on the necklace and asked him to appear, leading me to believe that I was probably just losing my mind. But what about Alex? He didn't seem bothered by it at all; if anything, it was normal for him to see Avalar the Ninja Lion. Did that mean my son was going crazy too?

Maybe to a five-year-old, to Alex, it probably all seemed like a game.

I sighed.

As much as I loved my mother's house, it was beginning to feel stuffy, and I decided to go into the back yard to look for my charm bracelet that Alex had managed to pilfer and hide as part of one of his silly little games with his new friend. Somewhere between talking to Mr. Evers, and calling Jessica at the University, I had caught Alex rummaging through my old jewelry box. He had taken to snooping through my things even after I sent him into an extra-long timeout for doing so. I would have succeeded in getting my bracelet back before he could take it with him, but Jessica had picked up the phone before I could, and I resorted to watching him play with it outside until I got off the phone with her.

If only I knew that call was going to take over an hour and a half…

Walking out into the backyard, I noticed Gallagher curled up in a ball under the table. It was the first time he was quiet since Alex and I had arrived. He was so still that I thought he was dead at first, until he opened one eye and silently watched me walk past him.

I walked into the clump of trees that Alex had been playing in that morning. There was a good chance he had hidden my bracelet there. I noticed the patch of mud that he had fallen in yesterday and the log he had tried to walk across was half-submerged in the middle of it, and carefully stepped around it to avoid falling in. I stopped in the middle of Alex's thicket and looked around. A gentle breeze rustled in the trees. For a moment, I felt helpless. Was it going to be even possible finding my bracelet out here? I was just about to walk back inside, telling myself I would have a very important conversation with Alex about respecting other people's things, when something shiny caught my eye.

It was a dagger. In fact, it was one of the daggers I had found in the box. It was lying on the ground between two trees whose trunks look badly carved up. It was as if someone had repeatedly attacked the trees; one had nicks and cuts in random places, while the other tree seemed to have been carved up in one neat spot.

Something quietly rustled in the distance, and I looked up to see a flash of white trimmed in red through the trees. He was there, watching me. I glared at him. Did he not know that he was starting to make me feel as though I had gone insane?

"You've been playing Ninja," I muttered, picking the dagger up from the ground. I turned the handle around in my hand, glaring at the young, handsome face watching me through the branches, "You shouldn't be doing that around my son. He's too young to be playing with knives."

He did not say nor do anything. Instead, he just continued to stare, his jaw squared tightly. I could feel his eyes on me, watching me. It was not malicious or anything, just uncomfortable. I was definitely not surprised that I did not get a response out of him, but that did not stop his nonchalance from making me angry. How could he talk to my son with no problem, but not to me?

Something in the very back of my mind told me that I should be careful, that a grown man wouldn't normally spend so much time with a five-year-old boy, unless…

No, I shook my head, he was a ghost. He couldn't do something…_ inappropriate_… to Alex.

"Are you going to say something, or just continue to stare at me like some kind of clown?"

He lowered his head, his face disappearing into his robes. I sighed and turned to go back to the house. Just as I emerged from Alex's thicket, I noticed my bracelet sitting on the log submerged in that godforsaken patch of mud. It had not been there when I had passed a moment ago.

I delicately retrieved my bracelet from the log, thankfully not falling as I did so, and walked back into the house to get ready to head into town. Despite the oncoming headache, I knew that I only had two days to prepare and pack for our trip. Mom had taken Alex out for the day, perhaps to get some time in with her grandson before we left. She had even extracted his booster seat from my car so that they could take her Toyota Highlander, while I took my little beat up old Nissan. Their last stop was going to be at the park, where I would meet them so we could go out to dinner.

Before I left for the Wal-Mart, I went into the bathroom to clean the dirt and bits of tree trunk from the blade. I found myself having to be very careful as I did so, as the dagger had not been blunted in the least bit, even after having made the marks in the tree.

..xoxoxoxox..

The car ride was quite peaceful, for the most part. It was a warm, sunny day in Salem. Many people had taken advantage of the wonderful weather, and were out and about. It was a little strange to drive down the streets I grew up on as I headed to the Wal-Mart. When I passed the local cemetery, I noticed a flash of white from the passenger seat. This time, I listened to my son's words regarding paying attention to the road, and just took to squaring my jaw at the ghost and glaring at him from the corner of my eye.

"Do you know what it's like to die?" he asked quietly. My brow furrowed.

"What kind of question is that?" I snapped, feeling irrationally angry at him. What in the world did he mean by that? Wasn't he _dead_ already? How did he _not_ know?

I brought the car to a stop at the intersection at the corner of the cemetery, and looked at him. He was gazing out of the window at the tombstones, trailing one of his fingers down the window pane. His hood was drawn very far over his face, leaving only his chiseled, stubbly chin visible.

"It's an honest one."

He spoke so matter-of-factly that it made me even more angrier at him, and I gripped the steering wheel and focused on the road in front of me, not wanting to talk to him anymore. I wanted to yell at him for not answering my questions, for only talking to my son, and for incessantly following us. The worst thing I could do was show my anger, however, so I did not say anything.

When the light turned green, I looked back at the passenger seat, only to find it empty.

"Do I know what it's like to die," I grumbled, mainly to myself more than anything. I pulled my car into the Wal-Mart parking lot, "of course I don't. That's why I'm alive, and you're not…"

Being a mother, navigating the local Wal-Mart was normally a very easy task. Most Wal-Marts these days were open 24 hours a day now, which was a blessing. I could remember one time when I had to make a trip at very odd hours in the morning in order to buy Pedialyte for Alex when he had gotten a very nasty flu virus.

But this Wal-Mart had been remodeled at some point over the years, so I had trouble finding the skin care aisle in order to buy the highest-factor sun block possible. I wasn't sure exactly what the weather was like out in Syria this time of the year, but I knew it wouldn't hurt to come prepared for anything.

As I navigated through the aisles, I couldn't help but sense the distinctive feeling that someone was following me. I tried hard not to constantly peer over my shoulder, but it was difficult. He was usually there, stalking a few feet behind me. Every once in a while, I would catch him watching me, but mostly he took to watching the random shoppers we passed. Once, I thought I heard him scoff at a very young man who was arguing loudly with his girlfriend over who was going to bring the box of condoms to the register.

It was not an uncomfortable feeling, having him follow me. In a strange way, even despite my anger toward him, it was a safe feeling; if anything were to happen to me, I would be all right. But it was not a very welcome feeling, either. I was a big girl, I could handle myself.

Not that any of it justified him not giving me the answers I needed. Even when I had told him I would help him, he still wouldn't talk to me. He was so stubborn! Could he not see that I was his only help?

I came out with a pair of sunglasses with orange lenses for Alex, a silk head scarf for myself, and several bottles of Blue Lizard Australian Suncream, though I was apprehensive that it was only SPF 30. However, it was the highest factor I could find that didn't cost me an arm and a leg to buy, and I figured I could just keep applying it whenever it was needed.

I wondered where Altaïr's sudden interest in following me had come from. Just like he had followed me around the Wal-Mart, he rode in the passenger seat as I drove to the park to meet Mom and Alex. This time, however, he did not said anything. I wondered if he was mad about my remark of already being dead. I tried to spark some kind of conversation with him, although it was in vain as he refused to say anything.

Aside from my prying, the ride was quiet. I was almost at the park when the stoplight outside the craft shop turned red, and I slowed to a stop. A part of me wondered if something had made it turn red in order for me to stop, as I noticed the old hippy from the day that Alex and I had arrived watching me from outside her shop. Alex had said that she could see the ghost, maybe she could help me get the answers I needed.

I made the right turn into the shop's tiny parking lot, and headed inside. The shop was not like anything I had expected. Given that it was a craft supplies shop, I had expected to find bottles of paint, wood glue, fabric, fake flowers and the like. Instead, I was greeted by the smell of burning incense, spell books, tarot cards, as well as other 'witchy' things. Definitely_ not_ the sort of craft store I had been anticipating.

"You're Rio, aren't you?" the voice sounded tired, wizened. It cut through the quiet shop, making me jump. Behind me, I could hear Altaïr stiffen. A sharp metallic sound caught my attention, and I turned around to see him poised, still as stone, a small blade drawn from the metal cuff attached to his wrist. It protruded from the spot where his ring finger should have been.

_No wonder he__'__s missing his finger…_

_What _was this man?

"Well? Aren't you?"

I looked up at the old hippy behind the counter. Her long, wavy hair framed her gaunt face. I could tell that her hair had once been a vibrant golden blonde color, but became faded with gray over time. She peered at me with deep-set blue eyes through a pair of thick glasses, her expression steady. I cleared my throat.

"How do you know my name?"

"I got your e-mail the other day. I wrote you back, but you never replied," she leaned on the counter, propping her chin on her palm.

"That was you?"

"Indeed." I stole another glance at Altaïr. The blade had disappeared, and he was lingering by the window. Even under the hood, I could tell by the tilt of his head that he was trying hard to appear like he wasn't listening to our conversation. I could just barely detect the slightest flinch of movement when she spoke again, "All I can tell you is that he's not a normal ghost. He won't be as easy to get rid of as Bucket Head was."

I stepped toward her, putting my hands on the countertop, "He won't tell me how to help him."

"I'm afraid I can't either. He makes it a point to not tell me. He won't even look at me."

I felt a smirk slide across my lips. Oh, how I knew what that felt like. Perhaps it was normal that he wouldn't talk to just anyone, "Yeah, he just ignores me, too. Every now and then he'll say things that don't make sense to me. I'm not sure what to make of it," I glanced back at him. He was no longer looking at the floor, but was looking at me. Just what in the world was he _looking_ for? "He'll talk to my son, though. But… I don't think Alex understands that he needs to move on…"

"I'm just guessing, but I would think that every time he looks at you, he sees _her_."

"Who? Seri?"

"Is that her name? Yes, I would suppose so," she frowned at him, tilting her head. "That must be what stops him from telling you what you want to know."

"So how do I get him to tell me?"

"Ah," she smiled, and held a finger up. Even if she was so much older than myself, she moved with the gracefulness of a fairy as she disappeared through a set of hanging beads and curtains that hung in a doorway behind the counter. When she returned, she came back carrying a rectangular box. She set it on the counter and opened it, rummaging around inside. I could hear footsteps behind me, and suddenly Altaïr was beside me, watching in interest. He was so close that I could almost smell him; leather and sandalwood. It was a nice smell. "He'll tell you when he's ready to tell you. Until then…"

She held her hand out, revealing a small key. I frowned in confusion.

"What's this for?"

"In time, Rio, in time."

_Another night, Alexander_, Altaïr had said to Alex, _another night…_

What was it with people not just telling me things, already?

"Don't tell me you're going to leave me hanging, too…" I grumbled. She laughed heartily, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. For a moment, the motion made her look sixteen again.

"Unfortunately, I have to. There are some things we must discover for ourselves. Go on, take it."

I took the key from her, balancing it in my hands. For such a small key, it was awfully heavy.

"Don't fret, don't fret," she cooed, closing the box. I looked up at her, "It will all make sense, in time. For now…" she pointed at the door, "Your son is currently hanging from the monkey bars like a chimpanzee, and he very much misses his _new friend._"

I frowned, but said my goodbyes and left the store. It was when I was back in my car and sitting at another stoplight at the end of the road that I realized that I never once put a description of myself in that e-mail I sent a few days ago.

I instantly recognized my son as an unmistakable green and denim blur when I crossed the Whicker Park soccer field to the jungle gym, where Alex was crossing the monkey bars. My mother was watching him from a nearby bench.

"Rio, it's about time you showed up," she greeted, smiling.

"I had to stop by and see an old friend. It took a little bit longer than I thought it would," I sat down on the bench beside her and watched as Alex climbed to the top of the swirly-slide. He was wearing brand new denim shorts. "I assume you went shopping today?"

"_Sí_, Alex and I went to the mall and we got some new clothes for the trip. He liked the shorts so much that he demanded he go into the bathroom and change them," she laughed, "I got you some clothes, too. They're in the car."

"Did Alex behave himself?" I asked. She nodded, but her eyes flashed darkly. I knew that look; it was a mother's look, the kind that usually meant something was wrong. I didn't like that look on her face.

"Oh, he was an _angel_ the whole time…" She frowned and studied the handkerchief she kept folded in her hands, "But… he keeps asking where this 'Avalar' figure is. At first, I thought it was just a little phase," She looked back up at me, "you did the same thing when you were his age, you know, keeping invisible friends. But… this is different. I hope he grows out of it by the time he starts school. It's unhealthy."

I frowned. If only my mother knew the truth. Even if she did, though, I doubted she would believe me. I should have told Alex to not say anything about Altaïr to anyone; people were going to think he was crazy, if he kept it up like my mother had described. I couldn't imagine being asked to bring my son to a psychologist for some kind of psychiatric evaluation, or something. And I certainly did not want to think about him being teased when he started going to school in the fall.

I wondered what Altaïr must have promised him to make him so excited.

"Nan! Look at me! Watch!"

My mother and I both looked up at Alex, who waved at us from the top of the slide. We both waved back, and he went down, sliding down in tight circles like the ridges on a screw. When he hit the bottom, he began running toward us. I smiled and prepared myself for a hug that I never received.

"Avalar! You're back!" He shouted, "Hi Mom!" He ran past the bench my mother and I were sitting on and disappeared into the leaves of a willow tree behind us. I felt my mother's eyes scanning me, trying to read my thoughts. The only thing I could think about, though, was the wrenching feeling of my heart sinking into my stomach. Suddenly the 'Almightily Avalar' had become more popular than 'Super-Mom' and I hated it. I looked at my hands, suddenly finding them very interesting.

"What… what was that?" my mother asked me, her eyes still scanning my face. I shrugged, unable to bring myself to look at her in the eyes.

"You're right, Mom, this is very unhealthy for him. I'll talk to him after dinner tonight."

..xoxoxoxox..

Two days later, my mother offered to drive us the two hours to Logan International so we could avoid paying the parking fees. Halfway through the drive, Alex realized that he had forgotten his stuffed eagle at my mother's house. The die-cast eagle toy was in his bag in the trunk of the car, therefore my mother and I had little hope of calming him down. It wasn't until that unmistakable, soft, toneless voice began whispering to him that he had stopped crying. I wondered if my mother could hear Altaïr as well, but she did not seem to notice anything until Alex began whispering back to the ghost, to which she muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

"Alex! Look at the planes!" I said, pointing at the passenger jets that were coming and going from the airport. This certainly interested him, and he was immediately asking questions: Where were the planes going? Who was on them? How did they stay in the sky? These were questions that he hadn't asked since we waved good bye to my cousins who were going back to Puerto Rico last year.

We parked as close to the airport as possible, which was not very close at all. International airports are always so busy. As Mom grabbed the luggage from the trunk, I noticed that Alex had managed to get himself out of the seat, but I suspected he may have been helped.

"Mom, look! I'm an airplane!" he said, running in tight circles around with his arms held out, making plane noises as we walked through the parking lot. I quickly told him that it wasn't safe to run around parking lots, and to stay close by. At first, he didn't want to listen to me until he saw how crowded the arrival hall was. Afterward, he kept a tight grip on my light jacket.

Going through security check points and checking our baggage in went by easily. At first, Alex had been excited to know that he would be able to take his shoes off when we went through security, but had quickly went into a small meltdown when we had to go through the metal detectors.

"Mom! They're taking Avalar away!" Alex screamed, trying to reach for the die-cast eagle that I had handed to the security guard to put in the box with my keys, watch, and belt as we passed through the metal detectors. Alex cried the entire time, but calmed down again once I got his shoes back on and told him I would take him to get some candy from the snack bar. Candy seemed like a very good alternative to the die-cast eagle, which I stuffed into my purse. He didn't need to know that I had the toy in my bag until our flight was over.

As soon as our bags were fully checked in, and we were clear to start boarding our plane, Alex and I bid my mother farewell and began toward the tunnel that would take us to our plane. Alex was very apprehensive about this. He had spent ten minutes trying to figure out were our bags went once they were on the conveyer belt, and was now worried that the monster that ate them was going to eat us for dessert.

"Are you _sure_ no monsters live down there?" Alex asked as he looked down the tunnel leading to our plane.

"Yes, I'm sure it's safe," I picked him up, and carried him into the plane.

..xoxoxoxox..

The first half of the trip, from Logan International to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in France, was uneventful. Both Alex and I slept most of the time, with little breaks to eat and watch a few movies, namely _Indian in the Cupboard, Finding Nemo, Shrek III, _and Disney's _Lion King. _

Navigating through the French airport was not an easy task, but we managed, and we were soon on our flight to Damascus. An hour into the second flight, I noticed that it was approaching 6:30 in the evening back home in Salem. By now, Alex was usually eating dinner and finishing up his cartoons before bed.

Much to my dismay, this meant that he was wide awake when all I wanted to do was sleep. I had tried hard to stay awake most of the initial flight, napping when he napped, so I could make sure he behaved himself and take him to the bathroom should he need to go.

Aside from his constant chattering, he was behaving beautifully, contentedly looking out of the window of the plane. He wanted to see if people really did look like ants from high up, but was disappointed to see that the only thing he could see at the moment was clouds. A few hours into the flight, he got bored looking out the window, and decided he was going to try and retell the story that Altaïr had told him the other night.

"The princess was very lonely in the palace..."

I dozed off half way through his sentence.

..xoxoxoxox..

"_Do you know what it'__s like to die?"_

_I think I had been sleeping; the voice caused me to open my eyes. I was still in the airplane, a horrible crick in my neck from the position I had been sitting in. The plane was silent, aside from the occasional shudder and flight attendant tip-toeing up and down the aisles. Outside the window, it was dark; nighttime. According to my clock, it was only about eight in the evening._

"_Do you?" the voice that had woken me up came from beside me. He, Altaïr, was sitting there, Alex curled on the seat next to him, his head resting on his lap and his thumb in his mouth. Altaïr'__s hood was down, revealing his young face to me again. I noticed that he was deeply tanned, but despite that, his nose held just the faintest hint of freckles. Obviously, he had spent a lot of time in the sun when he was alive, hood or no hood. I noticed that he kept the hand missing the finger tucked deep into his robes, while the other hand brushed absentmindedly at Alex__'__s hair._

"_Why do you insist on asking me that?" I asked. _

"_It'__s an honest question. Do you?"_

"_Of course I don'__t," I frowned down at my son__'__s sleeping face. "I hope I won__'__t know for a long, long time. I hope he," I pointed at Alex, "won__'__t know until long after I do know."_

_He was silent, continuing to brush at Alex__'__s hair. I wondered why he had not covered his face again. For the life of me, I could not understand my next question._

"_Will you tell me?"_

_His thick brows furrowed, marring his handsome face. The look was natural on him; something told me he was very much a worrier when he had been alive. He looked out at the pitch blackness outside the window, "It__'__s…it__'__s a very difficult feeling,"_

"_To describe?"_

"_To feel."_

_I reached out and gingerly touched the hand that kept brushing at Alex__'__s hair. To my surprise, his hand felt incredibly warm and smooth, save for a number of tiny scars, little nicks and cuts that had long, long ago healed over. He jumped violently, I was surprised it had not woken Alex up, and looked at me, his expression dark. _

"_We__weren__'__t supposed to happen," he said softly, "We never should have happened. I never would have been Trapped…"_

"_Trapped?"_

"_And she never would have…"_

"Mom! We're here! You better buckle up!" Alex shouted. I groggily opened my eyes, "Don't worry about my seatbelt, Mom, Avalar buckled it for me."

I yawned and rubbed my eyes, as a man with a deep French accent spoke up on the intercom. A screen in the headrest of the seat in front of me translated the words: _We will be landing at Damascus International shortly. Please buckle your seatbelts, using the example as shown below._ An animated seatbelt kept buckling and rebuckling itself under the words.

When the plane had landed, and we were allowed off. I stepped to the side of the tunnel and rummaged around my bag, finding my kid keeper, one of the greatest mommy inventions ever created. It was a dinosaur-patterned wrist strap attached to a dinosaur-patterned lead; much like a dog's leash, but for a child's wrist. It was used to stop children from getting wandering around and getting lost in exiting new places. At first, Alex argued against his 'puppy leash,' as he called it, until he saw how big the bustling crowd was outside the terminal. If Logan International had been busy, this was exactly like a three-ring circus.

The only way to navigate through the airport was to push and shove through the crowd. And although I had strapped Alex up with his puppy leash, I ended up picking him up and holding onto him as tightly as I could as we wound our way through the madness to collect our bags.

It was more difficult to navigate than the French airport had been, and I ended up enlisting the help of Timothy, an attractive off-duty United States marine, to translate for me and get me through the airport. Four very thorough passport checks, and one 40-minute, even more thorough baggage claim later, I found myself waiting in a modern internet café waiting for the escort from the University to take Alex and I to the hotel.

"Mom?" Alex whispered from his spot next to me at our table, where I was playing solitaire and chatting with Timothy about five-year-olds; apparently, he had a daughter back at home. "Mom, I have to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Avalar is sad."

I touched Alex's face, offering the most sympathetic smile I could while wondering if Timothy was listening to Alex. If he did, would he think that Alex was crazy? But Timothy appeared not to have heard him, as he was quickly finishing my hand in the card game on the screen.

An hour later, Alex and I bid Timothy farewell when one of the University representatives, Eric, found us in the café. As Eric helped us with our luggage and escorted us to one of the University's cars, he began explained that Damascus International was about 29 kilometres from the centre of the city, which was where our hotel, the Sheraton Damascus, was. We would be spending the night there until another representative from the University came to get us in the morning.

As the car wound through the narrow streets, Eric continued pointing out random buildings and towers that seemed impossibly tall. I didn't understand the need to fill our heads with random facts about the "oldest continuously inhabited city in the world," as it was awfully late and Alex and I were both exhausted from the trip, but I let him ramble on.

Alex was especially quiet during the half-hour drive to the hotel; by the looks of it, he seemed to be intently listening to something other than Eric's ramblings.

The hotel was nothing short of amazing, although I wouldn't have expected anything less from Dad's colleagues at Cambridge. There was an ATM in the lobby with a currency converter, which I gladly took advantage of before checking in. It was a relief to see that much of the staff at the registration desk spoke English, which made checking in much easier than I had anticipated.

Our room was a single, complete with a spacious king-sized bed, a plasma television, and a balcony overlooking the pool. It was a shame that I couldn't understand anything that was on the television, but I didn't mind. It wasn't like Alex and I were going to be here for very long.

After exploring the bathroom and getting excited over the miniature bottles of shampoo, Alex took to bouncing on the bed while I rummaged through our bags for Dad's mobile number. I told him I would call him as soon as we arrived at the hotel. It took about five minutes for him to pick up his phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Dad, it's me. Alex and I are at the hotel."

"Rio! You made it! I'm glad you arrived safely," there was a muffled sound on the other line, as though he had covered the speaker with his hand or something, "Oh yes, oh yes. Rio? I'm going to have to call you back in a bit; we've just found something amazing!" I heard some more shuffling as someone else grabbed the phone.

"Hey!" I knew that voice very well.

"Hey Farley!"

"Rio! You're going to love it here! There's so much sun! I'm so tanned, and it's only been about a week! Did you bring the cookies?"

When Farley had discovered that Alex and I were coming out to the dig, she demanded that I convince Mom to bake her some white chocolate and fudge cookies. Apparently, Farley wasn't too fond of the choice in sweets here in Syria.

"Yes, I brought the cookies. Just wait until tomorrow, and you can eat them," I said. I heard a crash.

"Malik! You fluffy nightmare! Get off my laptop!" I heard her shout.

"Far? You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, just shouting at the cat. Did you hear? Dad got me a new cat. One of the interpreters helped me come up with a name for him. But, I really have to go before he eats my sandwich. Bye!" she said cheerfully.

"Bye." I had a feeling she hung the phone up before she could hear my reply.

I tossed my phone into my bag, and plopped down. Alex had finally stopped jumping on the bed, and was now sitting next to the balcony door, gazing out the window. I wondered what he was looking at.

"Guess what Alex," I said, frowning when he jumped in surprised and turned to me. I walked over and hugged him, "Aunt Farley got a cat you can play with."

He laughed, "Can I get a cat too?"

"We'll see."

He seemed satisfied with that answer, and turned back to the balcony door. I sighed.

_She has a cat now. And I though Gallagher was a nasty thing. What on earth is the new one going to be like?_

* * *

_sorry fer the long wait.._

_and i apologise for the odd chapter title...im trying to name them all arfter kids games that are related in some way to the chapter but im running out of names..._

_and i hope you all liked it_


	6. All of my memories

I looked up at the clear night sky and sighed in contentment. It was so strange and different from back home, but I liked it, a lot. The stars were brighter here, it was nice.

I was sitting out on the balcony of the hotel room, staring at the stars above me and listening to the city beneath me. Alex had already gone to bed after I tried to tell him a story that he interrupted half-way through, saying I wasn't as good at telling stories about knights and princesses as Altaïr was. I was not sure how I felt about that, I was just happy he was asleep and not bouncing on the bed anymore.

A small breeze ruffled my hair, followed by the sound of soft footsteps behind me. It was Altaïr. He was wearing his simple white robes, as usual, but this time he didn't wear any of his leather armour or even his throwing knives, just the simple red sash tied at his waist, and his boots. He almost looked like one of the old-timer merchants that I had seen when we made the drive through the city to the hotel.

He came to stand beside me at the railing; his head was turned up to the night sky. I wasn't quite sure if he could really see the stars from under that hood, as it was drawn very far over his face, but I'm sure it did not matter whether he could or not as he just simply sighed and rested his hands on the railing.

There was a strange expression on his face, one that I'd never seen before. It was puzzlement, almost, with his brows fiercely knit together and his lips drawn tight. I tilted my head to the side and frowned at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

_I let my head lull back as the light Damascus breeze whispered against my face, his scent enveloping me. He smelled of leather, sand, dirt, and sweat; it was a masculine smell. He was standing behind me, his arms wrapped tightly around my middle, hands rubbing gentle circles over my belly._

_We looked up at the sky, him and I. The stars twinkled and fizzled in the never-ending blackness of the night. Without lowering my gaze, I reached up and touched my hand to his face. I felt him nuzzle against my palm, the bristly whiskers tickled. His lips found one of my fingers, where he planted a kiss._

"_Why are the stars so beautiful?" I asked him quietly._

_He stopped kissing my fingers and put his chin on my shoulder._

"_I'm sure they would ask the same of you."_

I blinked as the sound of a car's blaring horn cut through the silence of the night, riding on a breeze that brought with it the smell of fresh Tabbouleh. The memory had most definitely _never_ been mine, but I felt like I had been the one who experienced it first. I could still sense the way that the night had smelled of sand and incense, rather than sweat and burnt oil; the way the soft linens had felt against my body; the way the stubble had felt against my palm and my neck. It had all been so _real. _I swallowed hard and forced myself to look at Altaïr again.

He didn't seem to really notice me, only looked down at the street below us. I wondered what was going through his mind.

"The city… it's not like how you remember, is it?" I asked, it finally dawning on me.

For a moment, I didn't think he was going to reply, but he shook his head, "Nothing like it. Sounds I've never heard, smells I've never smelled, buildings that didn't exist before…" his head turned to me, his face lost in the black abyss of his hood, "I spent most of my life here. And yet, I look at it now, and I find I don't know where I am."

I think, if it had been quiet enough, I would have been able to actually hear my heart break. I could post definitely _feel_ it. He looked so sad, so lost. At least I had family here to provide some kind of familiarity. All he had was his memories. I wondered exactly how long ago it had been that he lived here; but before I could ask, another breeze ruffled my hair, and he was gone.

..xoxoxox..

The next day was much, much cooler than the day before, which was a blessing as our escort from the University to the dig was late. We were waiting in the hotel foyer for him.

Alex had wanted to go swimming while we waited. But, knowing that it would take an arm and a leg to get him out of the pool when it was time to go, I refused, to which he threw the mother of all temper-tantrums. If we had been back home in Pennsylvania, I would have left Alex to get over it on his own. But, couldn't risk losing him in a place like this, so I calmly told him that screaming and crying was not going to get him anywhere (to which he ignored me and continued on) until I decided I was going to take him back up to the hotel room for a time-out. However, just before I could take his hand and drag him back to the elevator, I noticed Altaïr sitting next to him on one of the benches, talking calmly with him. His tantrum quickly died down, and I was horrified to hear a woman making a comment about the kind of mother I was for making Alex's 'father' calm him down.

_She can see him?_

I almost jumped up to ask her if she really could see the man talking to my son, but stopped at the realization that she would probably think I was crazy for asking her if she really could see the ghost. Instead, I took to massaging my temples. I wished that I was the invisible one at that moment.

Out of the corner of my vision, I noticed Altaïr glance up at me from his spot beside Alex and vanish as a luggage attendant swooped by, pushing a cart of coats and suitcases. He knew I was not happy with him, but I'm sure he wasn't aware of just how angry it made me. Suddenly, he was able to calm my son, and not me? Who did he think he was?

After Alex had completely calmed down, I decided to take him outside the entrance of the Sheraton Damascus to wait for our escort, partly to keep his mind off of not being able to go swimming, and partly to get away from the stares brought on from his tantrum. Alex decided to wear the sunglasses I had bought for him. I couldn't see Altaïr, but I could tell that he was still there, lingering, as Alex had waved at the empty space beside a potted palm tree when we walked outside.

"Mom, watch me!" Alex shouted as he did an odd-looking half-cartwheel. I smiled.

"You're getting better."

"Yeah! I want to show Aunt Farley that I can do what she can do!" he chirped.

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to do that later. Now come sit next to me so I can keep an eye on you. We shouldn't have to wait much longer…"

Alex had wanted to be like his aunt since he watched her in a gymnastics competition a year ago. During last Christmas's trip to see my parents, he begged Farley to show him some of her tricks. She taught him simple things, mainly rolls and tumbles, but he enjoyed it. He loved showing off for her. He had even asked if he could take a gymnastics class, once, but I told him we could not afford it. While that was part of the truth, I was also afraid that it would make him too competitive; the last thing I wanted was for him to end up like his father.

"Look what I can do, Mom!"

I followed his voice and jumped up when I saw him walking along the waist-high wall encircling the fountains.

"Oh God, Alex! Be careful!" I shouted, beginning to make my way toward him.

"Mom, I'm okay—"

He slipped on a spot of slippery marble, and fell. I felt the blood drain from my face, and dashed toward him. It all happened too fast. One moment, I was watching in horror as my son fell towards the concrete, the next moment, I was sighing in relief when Altaïr appeared from out of nowhere and caught Alex before he could smack his head on the ground.

O_h thank God!_ I thought to myself. When I finally got to them, Altaïr had put Alex down and was now crouched down to look at him eye-to-eye, trying to calm him down for the second time that day.

He looked up at me and vanished as I scooped Alex up and hugged him.

"Alex, what were you thinking?" I asked, rocking him back and forth.

He sniffled, "I was trying to be like Avalar and walk on the fountain…"

I tried to swallow the frustration broiling in my chest, and continued rocking him, "Why are you trying to be like Avalar? I like you just the way you are!" He didn't answer me. I took his face in my hands and looked in his eyes, "I'm so glad you're all right! _Now_ do you see why I like to keep you near me all the time?"

He nodded.

"Is he okay?" a voice came from behind me. I turned around to see a woman jogging toward us. She was wearing a white blouse, tanned shorts, and a pair of leather boots, "I'm so sorry! That wouldn't have happed if I got here sooner. Where did that man go?"

"I don't know…" I trailed off, trying to look as perplexed as she did, "it's like he disappeared or something…"

Altaïr really had to start doing a better job of hiding himself.

I looked at the woman. She had a pretty, angular face with hazel eyes. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun. There was something strangely familiar about her, but I could not quite figure out what it was, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name…"

I held my hand out for her to shake, but she just glanced at it before smiling and pointing to a yellow hummer, "Oh, it's Jessica; I'm the one you talked to on the phone? I'm going to take you to the dig."

"Oh," I put Alex down on his feet and held his hand, "Then I guess you already know our names."

She nodded, "You're Rio, and he's Alex."

"Don't forget Avalar!" Alex piped up defiantly, pointing at an empty spot on the other side of him. Jessica looked puzzled.

"His invisible friend," I explained, "Avalar's his invisible friend."

"He's our ghost!" Alex grinned.

Jessica looked perplexed, "Right... well, let's be on our way," she smiled half-heartedly and began walking toward the hummer, leaving Alex and I to grab our bags on our own.

..xoxoxox..

The dig site was located at an old farm with equipment and satellites dotting the fields. The farm was obviously old, but the house was large, and actually looked somewhat modern. I knew from talking with my father that the archaeologists and scientists that chose to remain on site were staying there. Cattle and goats freely roamed the fields, casually feeding on the scrub grass. There were rocky hills in the distance, where I could just barely make out the shape of tents and scaffolding.

"This place is boring. You said there was a castle," Alex grumbled at Jessica from the backseat.

"There _is_ a castle; it's lying in bits at the dig site," Jessica muttered sarcastically as she pulled the hummer up to the front of the farmhouse. It was the first time she had really said anything in a while, after answering all of his questions. I was sure she did not like us too much, especially Alex, who was hard for someone to be around if he or she was not used to having children. I glared at her from behind my hair, but did not say anything,

Not everyone had been blessed with the gift of patience.

It was obvious Jessica had never had kids, as Alex's constant questions throughout the drive had annoyed her. The only time she ever said a word to me was the one time she forced a smile at me and asked me what on earth I let him watch on television when Alex kept asking her questions about places I had never heard of in my life that she insisted weren't around anymore.

The door to the farmhouse opened, and my sister stepped out. A shape stalked out from between her legs and slinked down the front steps. It was a slinky black cat with white paws. As we climbed out of the hummer to get our bags, the cat stopped in mid-step and plopped down on the ground right where it stood, staring up at me. The red bandana around its neck immediately told me that the cat was obviously Farley's.

I climbed out of the car as Farley came barrelling down toward me.

"Rio!" she cried, grinning.

"Hello, Farley."

She yanked me into a hug and twirled me around, laughing, "I was beginning to think you were lost."

"Oh, no, of course not," I said as she let me down, pointing in Jessica's direction with my head as she retreated towards the tents in the field, "She just drives like a grandma."

"Dad's been really exited to know you were coming. Did you bring me cookies?"

"Yes, I did, but you're getting them later. I'd like to see Dad first."

"Aww, shucks. Okay, I'll get the monster," Farley laughed and skipped to the back of the hummer.

"Aunt Farley!" Alex greeted her. Farley scooped him up from the seat and twirled him around, just as she had done me. He giggled, "I told Avalar he'd like you!" Farley asked him who Avalar was, tuning Alex's answer out. We'd been through this with so many people, telling everyone that Altaïr was just Alex's invisible friend was beginning to become routine. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

I turned to look at the cat. It was staring up at me with strange, aqua-blue eyes. I felt like it was trying to talk to me telepathically, and it might have succeeded if Farley hadn't piped up.

"Oh cat, I wish you'd leave that poor rat alone. You torment it to hell and back, but yet you don't kill it," Apparently, Farley thought it was stalking a rat. The cat's head snapped up to her. She set Alex on his feet and picked the cat up, carrying it around like a baby. It took me a moment to realize that it was missing one of its front legs.

I instructed Alex to grab his bags while I grabbed mine. Jessica, apparently, had decided that we could handle our bags ourselves, and had not offered help us find our rooms, instead taking off in the direction of the tents. Farley had noticed this, and put the cat on the roof of the hummer, telling it to make as many paw-prints as possible for when Jessica decided to come back, and grabbed one of my bags.

"So, Far, were did you find the cat?" I asked, watching it flick its tail and pin its ears to its head in annoyance.

"I didn't find him, he found me. His name is Malik. One of the interpreters at the trade camp helped us name him. I think he likes it," The cat's ears had perked when it heard its name, but otherwise just laid its head on its paws and stared blankly at an empty space that I had the distinct feeling was Altaïr. Farley sighed, "The thing is, I can never tell if he's relaxed or depressed."

Farley decided to show Alex the cows and goats after we had decided that Alex and I would stay in a little corner room on the top floor of the farmhouse, which had a loft allowing access to the top of the roof. Happy to have some time to myself, I climbed the loft to look out at my new view from the farmhouse's roof as I waited for Dad to get back from the dig. Malik had found me there, and was lying beside me, staring placidly at his own shadow.

I felt that breeze ruffle my hair, and for the first time, I appreciated the familiar feeling that the ghost brought along with him. At first, I thought I would still be mad at him, but it was hard to stay mad when I was just as lost and confused in this new place as he was. He was familiar to me, and I, him.

"Altaïr," I greeted. Of course, he did not return my greeting, but he sat down on the other side of me. I noticed he was watching the cat. His hood was drawn, but it did not hide that funny, puzzled look on his face. I frowned, "Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing," he answered dismissively, still not taking his eyes away from the cat, "I'm just surprised that he's still alive."

I looked down at Malik, who was glaring back up at Altaïr in what almost looked like an intense staring-contest. However, the cat quickly stalked off on all three of its legs the moment he caught me looking at him, "Who? The cat?"

"Malik," he glanced in the direction the cat had disappeared in before turning to me, "He wasn't always a cat, though."

I cocked an eyebrow. Just what was he getting at?

"What do you mean?"

Before he could answer, I heard the crunching of dirt and stone from below, and I glanced down to see a dusty white pickup pull up to the front of the house. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Farley popping her head up from the loft, causing Altaïr to quickly vanish.

"Dad's back," she said, disappearing back down the ladder.

I quickly made my way to the front door, where Dad was getting out of the truck. When he saw me, he put down his dusty messenger bag, and opened his arms. I felt like a kid again as I gave him a tight hug.

"Rio!" Dad laughed, the crow's feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He planted a wet kiss on my cheek, "You're still just as beautiful as your mother."

"Hello, Dad," I giggled.

"Grandpa!" I heard Alex yell as the front door opened, and he came running up beside me, Farley coming with him. She was holding Malik, who was staring at the empty front porch. Dad released me in order to hug Alex.

"Dad, I'm going to meet two of the guys. I'll be back later," Farley told him when he had finished hugging Alex, and was now balancing him on his hip. Dad's brow furrowed. He took his glasses off with his free hand and cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Which ones? You know more than two..."

"Faris and Jabir."

He paused, then sighed, "Okay, be careful."

"I will," she said, kissing his cheek and taking off in the direction of the dig site, holding Malik to her chest.

He watched her leave, and massaged the bridge of his nose with the hand holding his glasses. He shook his head and grinned at Alex, telling Alex how crazy his aunt was. Alex just laughed.

I crossed my arms, "You're such a push-over. Do you want me to follow her?" I offered as we watched her run off. She had put Malik down, and Malik was now running along beside her.

"No, I think the cat will look after her," I furrowed my brow at my dad, but he just grinned at me, "You don't know that cat."

"You're as crazy as Mom," I said, picking up Alex and following my dad into the house.

..xoxoxoxox..

A few hours later, Dad gave Alex one of the soccer balls that one of the younger archaeologists had borrowed from the trade camp kids. Alex was playing with it behind the house. As I sat in the kitchen, I could see Altaïr kicking the ball back and forth with Alex through the window. No wonder Alex was having so much fun by himself. Dad was laying some notebooks and binders on the table.

"So, what have you found?" I asked, turning to him. He grinned.

"I'll show you."

He led me down into the basement, having to unlock the basement door with one of the keys on his key ring. When he flicked the light on, I could see that the floor of the basement was littered with very large crates.

"Wow, there's so much stuff!" I exclaimed. He laughed in agreement, leading me down into the middle of the basement, "And you're not done?"

"Rio, we haven't even scratched the surface," he said, grabbing some wrapped bundles from one of the boxes, and putting it on a table, "I _think_ we may have found a new cult, possibly a new group of people never before discovered."

"What's that?" I asked as he began unwrapping one of the bundles.

"That's the thing, _we don__'__t know_. What we _do_ know is that it's gunpowder, or some other explosive compound. But we don't know what it's _for. _We found them in a broken jar in our first trench." He reached into one of the bundles and plucked out a single pellet between his thumb and forefinger. It was black, and looked like it could easily crumble between his fingers. Without warning, he threw it at the floor. It exploded in a bright multi-coloured flash and a quick snapping sound. The smoke that coiled up from the crumbled mess on the floor looked like a snake.

_I felt a freezing wave of terror rush down my spine, watching as the serpent coiled up my Sister's leg. She screamed as another wave of pain rushed through her, and whimpered to the Matriarch to make the pain stop, just make it stop._

_Another flash, another snake. This one coiled around her thigh, slowly slithering its way across her womb, placidly hissing as it caressed her sweating skin._

_I felt my insides churn, and without thinking ,I rubbed my belly._

_Was this what was going to happen to me?_

"Rio? Are you all right, sweetheart?" My dad asked.

I blinked and quickly shook my head, "Oh yes, sorry. I was just thinking how strange it was that it should look like a snake after it explodes. What do you suppose it's supposed to mean?"

He frowned and shrugged, replacing the bundle of pellets back into a box, "Not sure, serpents can signify just about anything in terms of mythology. If this is a new civilization, we won't know what it means for a while. Want to know the strange thing? If our research is correct, whoever lived here had gunpowder long before Abd Allah's recorded use of saltpetre in black powder, which was sometime around 1200 A.D.

"We also found _this_," he reached into one box and pulled out the most peculiar thing I'd ever seen in my life. It looked like a wooden chalice, but the cup was carved into the shape of two joined skulls, both that of a jackal's. One was pointed upwards, its sharp teeth bearing maliciously, making the actual cup of the chalice. The other was pointed downwards as though it were some kind of grip or handle. I frowned and leaned forward, "We're very unsure of what this is for."

_I tipped the water from the wineskin bag into the top of the jackal's mouth, listening as it coursed through the chalice and flowed freely through the mouth on the bottom, pouring dark red wine into a bowl until it had reached its brim._

_He was smirking at me, his eyes twinkling. He accepted the bowl I handed to him generously, lapping the wine faster than any drunk I'd seen shambling through the streets._

"_Why must you be so tempting?" he rumbled softly, steadying the bowl on his lap._

"_You talk too much," I laughed, sipping at my own wine._

I blinked past the memory that was not mine, and forced myself to focus on my father as he talked. So the chalice could turn water into wine, how interesting. My father was right, the women who wore these strange, strange masks had definitely been interested in alchemy. I wondered if anyone had tried pouring water into the chalice yet, or not.

What was going on? If these memories were not mine, whose were they? Seri's?

Dad replaced the chalice and clapped the dust off of his hands, "Then, we have these …"

He lifted a lion's skull out of a yet another box. It looked like the ones in my dream, but there was no sense of evil around this one; it was just a normal skull.

I waited for the memories to assault me, but none came. This was confusing. Was I not supposed to remember something? Or was there nothing to remember about these masks?

"Maybe there was no reason for them," I said.

He frowned, "Nonsense. Nothing is ever made for no reason at all," he put the skull back in the box and cocked an eyebrow at me.

I shrugged, "You never know."

..xoxoxoxox..

A few hours later, Farley came back covered in dust and dirt, and a couple of cobwebs.

"Where'd you go?" I asked as I picked a string of dust from her hair.

"I went to the ruins. Malik showed me the way in; I think he's been there before. I got you something cool," she took an ivory pendent out of her bag, it was carved into the shape of an Egyptian cow, and dropped it into my hand.

I balanced it in my palm, inspecting it closely. The pendent seemed so familiar to me even though I had never seen it before in my life. It was like a memory or a dream I had long since forgotten about, nagging at my mind like I should know but I didn't, "Did you take it from the dig site?"

"No, I found it at the _ruins_, not the site. No one knows about them. Just Malik, Kadar, me, and now, you," she grinned, "I think they connect the old trade camp to the castle, or something."

"Who's Kadar?"

"A horse I found."

"You found a _horse_?"

She ignored me, choosing to pet Malik as he jumped up onto the table. He looked as though he had been running from something, and I knew what it was the moment Dad and Alex came in, looking for him. When Alex saw Malik, he dashed over to pick him up. Dad quickly stopped and crossed his arms at Farley.

"Faris and Jabir came looking for you at the dig earlier, they said you were with them one moment and gone the next. I thought you said you'd be at the dig, where'd you go?" my father said as Farley looked at him. She had a guilty look on her face.

"I'm sorry..." she said quietly, feigning a look of innocence. I had a five-year-old, I knew that look very well. "I went to go play with the trade-camp kids…"

My father sighed and lifted up my tub of cookies. With the speed I'd never seen my sister accomplish, she jumped up and snatched the tub from his hands, sending Malik leaping to the floor and dashing beneath the chairs at the table. She quickly stalked out of the room, leaving Malik behind to try and dodge Alex.

"Sometimes, she terrifies me," my dad said, removing his glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose, "All these boys she likes being around, it's a wonder why my hair hasn't gone from gray to white. Anyway, I'll be in the office, let me know if you two need anything." He disappeared into the other room.

Alex, upon noticing we were alone, came up to me.

"Mom! Look what Avalar got me!" he whispered, just as I felt Altaïr appear. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

"What is it?" I asked as Alex pulled a long, golden feather from the front pocket of his coveralls. "Wow, look at that! Where'd you get that?"

"We went over to some big rocks where an eagle's nest was, and Avalar climbed to the top, and he stole a feather for me!"

"That's cool! But _next time_," I was sure to stress the words so Altaïr could hear me clearly, distinctly, "you better tell me before you go exploring. I would die if something bad ever happened to you." I glanced at Altaïr as I hugged Alex. Altaïr was staring at the floor, appearing to be lost in thought.

"It's not fair, he won't tell me how to fly now that I have the feather..."

"I think it's a good thing that doesn't tell you," I said, putting Alex down as Jessica walked in. She paused in the doorway, just in front of Altaïr, and glanced at Alex and I before forcing a smile and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

"I don't trust her..."Altaïr said, watching her retreat through the door, "Her hands are dirty."

"Well she _has _been digging in the dirt," he shot me an annoyed look. I didn't like it, it was cold, harsh. I quickly nodded and shrugged, "But you're right. She's impatient and easily agitated. I don't trust her either," I watched her through the window. She was talking to someone in a black land rover.

"That makes three of us. She's stuck up, arrogant, and thinks I need to wear more girly outfits and makeup," Farley chipped in from the doorway, making me jump. I was pretty sure she startled Altaïr, too, as he was looking at her with a funny expression on his face, "She arrived here from Cambridge the day you got to the hotel. I think you talked to her on the phone..?"

"Yes I did, but she isn't anything like she sounded on the phone,"

Farley, like Jessica, seemed to pause in the doorway before walking in. Something told me that they could sense Altaïr's presence. She crossed the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. While her back was turned, I glared at Altaïr, who seemed to get the point and vanished. We really needed to keep him hidden, or this was going to get blown out of my control.

Farley took a swig of her water, and screwed the cap back on, "This dig is weird," she began conversationally, frowning, "Ever since Dad found the masks, I keep feeling like someone … _something_ … is watching me. Have you felt like that, yet?"

"No, I think it's just you. You're going crazy. Are you going upstairs? Would you mind taking Alex with you?"

She shook her head and extracted Malik from under the chairs, holding Malik out as if using him as bait to get Alex to follow her, "Malik and I will take you to your room, okay, Monster?" Alex kissed me goodnight, and followed her out. I gently laid his feather on the table and held the pendent between my thumb and forefinger. All was quiet until I could smell the familiar scent of leather as Altaïr walked up behind me, his footsteps hardly making any sound.

"You need to be careful, Altaïr, it's not just the three of us anymore."

I looked up at him. He was staring at the pendent in my hand with an intense gaze.

"Where did you get that?" he growled lowly, his eyes narrowing at me. I could feel his breath on my neck, sending a shiver down my spine.

"Farley found it in the ruins. She gave it to me."

"It was _her__'__s_. I gave it to _her_..."

"You gave it to Farley?" I cocked an eyebrow at him, confused. Why would he do that?

_His hot breath was deliciously tickling my neck. I leaned back into him, enjoying the feeling of his body against mine. His prickly chin was rested on my shoulders, his strong arms wrapped around my middle. I gently traced my finger over his knuckles._

"_I brought something for you."_

"_I told you before, you needn't get me presents."_

"_I said I _brought _it, not _bought _it. One of Garnier's patients who died left this at her bedside. I thought of you when I saw it, and knew it would be a waste when the hospital burned down."_

_He reached back with his right hand and rummaged around one of his packs before bringing out his hand. His fingers unravelled to reveal the most beautiful pendent I'd ever seen. _

_I traced my finger over it, "Hathor, the Egyptian Cow Goddess," I breathed, "You stole it from an Egyptian?"_

_He brought his right arm back around my middle and put his chin back on my shoulder, "Garnier stole his patients from trade camps outside the city." He paused,_ _"I couldn't let it burn down."_

_"It's beautiful, thank you."_

_He took the pendent into his hands and unclasped it, bringing it up to my neck. The stiff, reed-string was itchy against my throat, and the pendent weighed it down, but I loved it nonetheless. He clasped it around my throat, his hands lingering around the nape of my collarbone. A shiver raced down my spine, and my head fell backward into his shoulder as he planted a soft kiss against the side of my neck._

I blinked, feeling the lingering feeling of the kiss against my neck. It was a ghost of touch, but it was enough to send my heart racing, and made my insides melt.

"_No_," Altaïr said, snatching the pendent from my fingers, "I gave it to _Seri._"

I couldn't help but feel unnerved. Her name rolled off his tongue, just like his own name had when he had first told me. I wanted to ask him to elaborate, but didn't get a chance, as he vanished before I could say anything.

* * *

i couldent find any good games to use as titles so i went with a song name its one of the songs i have been listning to as i wrote this and the next few chapters.

Memories, Somewhere and Overcome three brilliant songs by Within Temptation.

parts of this chapter are supposed to be in italics but im having a hard time telling the italics from the normal letters once its posted ...i apologise if they dident come out as italics and i'll go back and try to fix it some how...

but other than that i hope you liked this chapter.


	7. Lost And Found

_There was chanting all around me. It enveloped me, spread through me. The smell of incense burned my nose and throat, making me want to cough. I fought the urge to do so and looked around. I was in the temple, standing on a platform above the chanting voices_. _This was strange; I__'__d never recognized the smell of incense or the platform in my previous dreams._ _I walked to the edge of the platform and peered down at the scene below me._

_I could make out Seri in the far corner of the room. She was screaming loudly, struggling against two women in crocodile masks as they restrained her. At the front of the room, I could see the Matriarch standing on the stone altar, her staff glimmering in the torchlight. I heard the doors open, followed by the horrid scraping of Altaïr__'__s boots dragging along the floor. Two tall, slender women, wearing lion masks, dragged him over to the Matriarch. Seri screamed in protest as Altaïr was flung mercilessly onto the stone slab. He groaned in pain and clutched his stomach. Blood seeped over the white marble, pooling on the floor. _

_He was so weak; I fought the urge to scream in rage. What were they doing to him?_

"_An eagle cannot fly away when its wings are broken,__"__ the Matriarch hissed. Hanan stepped toward the altar alongside another girl; they were both wearing jackal masks over their faces. Seri shrieked, throwing all of her weight into her struggling, but it was to no avail. The two women holding on to her were whispering to her. She ignored their whispers and continued struggling, screaming out his name as his captives yanked his arms away from his stomach and laid them flat on the altar. I wondered why he was not fighting back, but rather just laying there, motionless, letting the two women yank on his limbs as though they were children pulling the arms and legs off of a Barbie doll._

_Suddenly, I heard a stomach-churning crack, and he screamed in pain, his voice reverberating in the air. When his screams finally died down, I felt like my heart had crumbled into dust, and it felt like there was nothing more than a hole in my chest where it had been. He laid on the altar, unmoving. _

_A horrifying through raced through my mind. Was this how he had died? Had I witnessed his death?_

_Seri continued calling out his name, but her voice was cracking. Her crying went unnoticed as the two women holding onto her began to escort her from the room. She fought against them, this time breaking free of their grasp and running toward the stone altar. _

_But she was too late; the Matriarch brought down her staff. It connected with Altaïr__'__s chest, just over his heart. A brilliant red and purple flash exploded over the altar, like some kind of multi-coloured smoke bomb. When the smoke had cleared, I saw that Seri had fallen to her knees in the pool of blood at the altar__'__s edge, her head in her hands. I could hear the Matriarch tutting at her from behind the altar._

_Hanan stepped away from the crowd of chanting women to pull Seri away. Seri reached back and hit her sister, though Hanan did not seem fazed. She grabbed Seri by the arm and pulled her out of the room, the chanting crowd finally breaking apart and following them. _

_Only the two women in crocodile masks, who had tried to keep Seri out of the way, remained. They waited patiently for the Matriarch, like soldiers waiting for orders. The Matriarch produced a familiar wooden box, and sat it delicately on a clean spot on the bloodstained altar._

"_Take this, and get it as far from here as you can," The women nodded silently, and the Matriarch produced two small vials, both filled with a sickeningly green-colored liquid, "Once you have rid us of Him, drink this. His location must be kept hidden.__"__ They both nodded again, and wordlessly stepped out of the room. The Matriarch followed them out._

_A moment later, I heard the doors open again, and Hanan walked in. She was not wearing her mask. She knelt down by the altar and collected Altaïr__'__s blood in a jar. A familiar black shape jumped down from the top of a nearby statue, and darted toward her. It was Malik. When she noticed him, she laughed and picked him up with bloodstained hands. He hissed at her._

"_I know, I know. __I__'__m very sorry, but there isn__'__t any thing you can do about it,.__"__ she told him sarcastically, lifting him up so that she was looking in his eyes. She put him back down, __"N__ow, get out of here before Mother comes back and kills you.__"_

_As she walked out, I could have sworn I saw Malik look directly at me and meow._

..xoxoxox..

I woke up that morning to find Malik crouched on top of me, staring me intently with his strange blue eyes. I groaned and shoved the cat off the bed, listening for the_ thunk_ as he landed on the floor. No wonder I had dreamt of Malik last night; he had jumped up on top of me while I was sleeping. I rubbed my face with my hand and climbed out of bed, replaying the dream in my head. The dreams were getting stranger and stranger, the more I had them. And more detailed, too.

Even through the closed door, I could hear Alex laughing and playing down in the kitchen. I hoped that he hadn't woken any of the other archaeologists up. I walked out of our room and peered down the staircase into the kitchen. He and Farley were chasing after a young man that I didn't recognize. All three of them had taped pieces of cereal and Cheezit boxes to their arms and shins, like a type of makeshift armour. Alex had a large plastic bowl over his head like a helmet. They were all chasing each other around in a tight circle around the kitchen table, where my father sat drinking a cup of coffee and laughing at them.

I frowned and leaned in the doorway, "What on earth are you playing?" I

"We're playing a game. We're calling it 'King Andrew's Knights of the Crumbling Cookie!' Dad's the King," Farley explained as she readjusted Alex's 'helmet' so he could see again. She was carrying a flattened cereal box that I guessed was a shield, and they both had wooden swords.

"Oh, really?" Alex broke free of Farley and ran to give me a hug. I knelt down to kiss his cheek, "Are you having fun?"

"We're trying to rescue the cookie from Marid!" Alex said as he pointed at the boy I had not recognized, who waved. He was definitely a local, and looked about my sister's age.

I tucked back one of Alex's cowlicks, "Why are you rescuing a cookie from Marid?"

"He ate Princess Oreo!"

I laughed and grabbed a mug from the drying rack over the sink.

An hour later, the cardboard armour that the Knights of the Crumbling Cookie had worn in their quest to rescue the cookie from Marid had been piled on the kitchen table, and the knights were outside, playing in the shade of the house. Alex had said they were going 'Dragon Hunting.' Farley insisted that the 'dragons' were actually just sand lizards.

I was reading a book and finishing my second cup of coffee when I felt that familiar rush of air against my face and looked up. Altaïr was leaning against the wall next to the window.

"Good morning," I said conversationally, eyeing the blood stains on his robes. I could hear the sound of his limbs cracking in the back of my mind, and swallowed the lump in my throat. Altaïr did not seem to notice me staring. If he did, he did not say anything, which was a relief. I wondered what he would have thought if he knew that I was having dreams about him dying. Instead, he just continued staring out the window. I could hear Alex giggling outside.

"The one your sister called Marid. He's hiding something," Altaïr said.

"I don't even get a hello anymore?" I grumbled, turning back to my book. From the corner of my vision, I could see Altaïr staring at me icily from under his hood. I turned a page, even though I hadn't quite finished reading it, "You don't trust in any of the people here, do you?" I looked up at him again. He shook his head before vanishing in an instant. I was about to say something in protest before my father walked in. I guessed Altaïr knew he was coming.

"Ready to go to the dig?" Dad asked, planting a kiss on my temple. I closed my book and slid my chair beneath the table.

"Yeah, let me grab some water and get Alex."

Dad gave us a tour of the dig site when we first arrived, and I was taken back by how big it was. Dad told me that they had uncovered part of an old structure hidden deep beneath the earth. According to some of the crude diagrams drawn by many of his scientists, it resembled a sort of underground castle with many twisting and turning hallways. I hoped my dad had not planned to take Alex and I through there any time soon without more detailed maps; just looking at the sketches I knew we would get lost very quickly.

Alex walked beside me during the first half of the tour, looking very bored and just placidly holding my hand as we followed Dad through the maze of tents and scaffolding. When Dad explained to him that we were walking over a castle deep beneath the ground, he lit up like a light bulb and immediately launched into a story about he 'finally found Princess Seri's castle' and that he needed to tell Avalar all about it when we got back to the house. This confused my dad, and I quickly had to explain to him that it was part of a game we were playing. He didn't ask many questions.

As we walked, Alex asked _a lot _ofquestions. I wondered if he was going to go into archaeology like my dad did. There were even several times that I had to stop Alex from touching very valuable-looking things, one of which was a carefully laid-out skeleton on a table. A short woman with red hair and glasses was carefully dusting off the bones with a little brush. Apparently, they had dug up quite a few of adult skeletons in an innermost layer of trenches around the mouth of the underground fortress. For a brief moment, I wondered if it was Seri's skeleton. Or worse, the Matriarch's.

I didn't like that idea, and I pushed it away as soon as I thought it.

Dad introduced Alex and I to a number of different members of the dig team. Alex, who was usually good at meeting new people, wanted nothing to do with the other scientists, and only wanted to go into the castle. I hadn't let him, though, to which, surprisingly enough, he did not throw a temper tantrum. As Dad was showing me a few miniature-sized figurines carved out of what looked like obsidian, I noticed Alex wandering closer and closer toward what looked like a staircase crudely carved into the rock. It wound up a small cliff to the top, where it was flat.

"Alex, don't go up there, I mean it," I warned. He cast me a knowing glance and smiled at me.

"Can I just sit down and play with Avalar?"

I mentally scanned the area for any sign of the ghost, but saw nothing. However, I noticed that he was holding up the little die-cast eagle in his hand; he had meant his toy. I smiled at him, "Sure, baby. Just make sure you don't go past the third step."

When I was sure that he was not going to go anywhere, I turned back to my dad, who was sitting in the dirt next to a small pit. He held a tray in his hands, and was thoroughly picking through the dirt with a tiny pick.

"So how long are you going to be here for?" I asked, sitting down next to him.

He glanced at me over the rim of his glasses, gray eyes sparkling in the sunlight, "Not sure. We had been here for a few weeks when we found the site. Actually, we were getting ready to go home when we stumbled upon it. The delay is going to cost us some more time here, but I think it's worth it."

"Mom misses you," I told him, fumbling with a rock. It was smooth and flat, and I could have sworn had once been an arrowhead of sorts. It looked like it had taken a beating out in the elements over time. I balanced it in my palm.

"I miss her too. I miss all my girls, really," he put his pick down and lifted what look like a pair of intricate tweezers between his thumb and forefinger. He carefully lifted what looked like a tooth, or perhaps just a very tiny rock, and examined it, "I'll be home before your mother knows it. I'm going to be sending Farley home soon, though. She loves it here, but I'm worried about her. She spends far too much time with the local boys."

I glanced over at Alex, who had not moved from his spot, and nearly started when I saw Altaïr squatting next to him, the tails of his tapered robe laying flat against the ground. He must have been silently following us as we ventured out to the dig, and I had not seen him. He was pointing up at the top of the steps and appeared to be telling Alex a funny story, as Alex was giggling incessantly. I looked back at Dad, "She's not going to like it when you send her home; she's enjoying herself. It's not every day that she gets to go to such an exotic place for vacation."

"I know, but—" he stopped as Jessica came running up to us. She had a weird look on her face, like she had seen a ghost or something. For a moment, I wondered if she saw Altaïr again, or if it had been something else. She looked like she had been running for a while, her blond hair had almost completely fallen out of its bun. I noticed Altaïr and Alex had stopped talking and were staring at her from the stairs.

"Andrew," she managed through breaths, "you're so hard to find when we need you. We've found something. Something _big._"

"What have you found?" he asked, placing the small tooth-rock-looking-thing he had been expecting into a glass jar and putting down his tweezers. I waved my hand for Alex to follow me, and he obediently stood and walked over to us. All three of us began following her all the way across the dig, to a newly-unearthed trench in what my father had described as the outermost layer around the mouth of the castle. She pulled out a pick similar to the one that my father had used to sort through the sand and reached in, plucking out a small skull.

"It's a mass grave, by the looks of things," she said, the skull dangling from the hooked end of her pick. I took Alex's hand in mine, yanking him back towards me before he could walk to the edge and look inside. The last thing I needed was for him to fall into a mass grave, ancient or not. The familiar rush of air on my face made me instinctively turn my head, and I noticed Altaïr standing behind me. He was looking down into the pit, his jaw squared and face solemn.

"Excellent!" my dad cheered, clapping his hands together, "That means there will be plenty more specimens to study! This find gets better and better!"

"Andrew…" Jessica's voice wavered. She rested the skull on the ground and turned it to face us. I let go of Alex's hand, but kept an arm around him as I knelt down to get a closer look. The skull was so _tiny_. My stomach began to knot. I thought I could hear Altaïr take a few footsteps toward me, and could have sworn I felt his hand on my shoulder, but I didn't turn around to check, "Andrew, from the size of these skulls, the majority of these bodies, if not all of them, were _infants."_

A chilling quiet settled over us. The happy look on my father's face vanished, and he lowered his arms to his sides, listless. He cleared his throat and knelt down, turning the tiny skull with the end of a pen that had been tucked behind his ear, "Perhaps disease killed them off?"

"Puncture wounds aren't the sign of disease," Jessica snapped, suddenly agitated. I glared at her from behind my hair, "They were sacrificed. I think we are dealing with far more than eccentric monks."

My dad didn't seem to notice her tone, "Right. Call Rollins down here, tell him to get lots of brushes and tables. Let's get a tally of how many of these have puncture wounds, how many of them don't, and how many of them are undeterminable. Is there any way that Cook can tell us how old these infants are?"

Jessica muttered something incoherent under her breath, and my dad nodded, "Good, good. Come on, Rio, I got something else to show you."

I was barely able to even register Alex's hand in mine as we began walking back to the front of the dig. I was too lost in thought.

_Who the hell were you, Seri?_

..xoxoxox..

A few hours later, my dad had reassigned nearly half of his team to what Jessica had dubbed "The Sacrificial Pit," and left me to wander around and take a look at the things that had been unearthed. Most of the things that had been dug up were unremarkable: clay pots, fragments of woven baskets, even a few withered spearheads. But there were other things, things I should never have recognized, but did. A few more masks had been dug up, another chalice that turned water into wine. Once, I could have sworn I saw a few scientists carrying the same type of jar that Hanan had used to collect Altaïr's blood in my dream, but I couldn't be sure.

I kept thinking about the tiny skull that Jessica had found. When Alex was born, I'd only been seventeen, and he had come very early. Though he wasn't sick or anything, the hospital had to keep him for a few weeks longer in order to guarantee that he would have a clean bill of health before coming home. Those were the most miserable two weeks of my life; there was nothing more that I wanted than to hold my son in my arms.

Paul had blamed me for Alex being "crippled," though he hadn't been, of course.

I could remember how tiny he was the first time I had ever saw him in that little plastic incubator with the light shining down on him, making his skin seem pink and translucent. His little face was jaundiced, and looked weird under his blue beanie, but I could not have found him any more beautiful. When I was allowed to hold him, I almost felt like I could have held him comfortably with just two hands. He was so small that I had even asked my mother how it had been possible for someone so small to make me put on so much weight when I had been pregnant.

That skull, the one Jessica had lifted from the pit, had been just as small. It made me feel sick inside.

I felt so sick that I had decided to decline my father's offer to show me some bizarre-looking jars that had just been unearthed that morning, and took Alex back to the house. Farley had decided to take Alex to meet up with Marid at the trade camp, where he was going to be their interpreter while they went to play some soccer with the kids there. In the meantime, I had decided to take a walk outside.

I was halfway between the house and the fence of an old pasture when I noticed I wasn't alone. Farley's three-legged black cat was following behind me, his tiny feet barely making any sound in the grass. He mewed when I turned to look at him, and I bent over to attempt to pet his head.

"Hello Malik," I said quietly. If looks could kill, the cat would have sent me to a thousand deaths. I really did believe the cat was bipolar; for a moment, I thought it was going to attempt to rip my hand off, but instead, he let me pet him, and even purred and butted at my hand with his head.

"Damn cat, trying to kill me," I heard a familiar voice from the front porch of the house. I looked up to see Jessica carrying a box to the hummer, "Wish I could kill you and be done with it, but the damn girl would cry her eyes out."

I frowned. Jessica had probably not noticed me, otherwise I was sure she wouldn't have let her mouth continue as it had been. I cleared my throat and forced a smile at her, "Hello, Jessica."

She started, and peered at me over her boxes. I could have sworn she was glaring, but I could not quite tell from where I was standing. We stared at each other for a brief moment before she continued toward the hummer without saying a word. I blinked.

_What__'__s her problem?_

When the hummer disappeared in a cloud of dust, I continued toward the old fence and leaned against it, sighing. I was beginning to feel homesick. I missed my mom. When we got back to the States, I wondered if I would have to go back to my house in Pennsylvania in order to finish up the lease, or if I would be granted permission to move in with my parents again. Perhaps I'd stay there for a while. I could get a job, make some money, and Alex would always have someone to watch over him when he came home from school.

_Christ,_ I thought,_ Alex starts school in the fall._ I slumped down to a sitting position with my back against the fence, _What am I going to do with so much free time on my hands?_

There was a very strange sound behind me, and I leapt up to find a large horse peering at me from behind the fence. It was a dark chestnut colour, with a broad white stripe down its head, and white legs. In the distance, I could see two other horses grazing happily in the sunshine. One was a black colour, the other a pure white. Why had I not noticed them before? I shied away from the chestnut as it tried to stretch its neck over the fence, its nostrils flaring as it sniffed me. I didn't like how big it was. It whickered and tied to nudge me with its nose. I stepped back further, until my back pressed up against something warm and solid. I was overcome with the smell of sandalwood.

_Altaïr. _

_Why is he warm?_

"You're just like her. She never liked horses, either," he said softly. His breath was hot and tickled my ear. The feeling wasn't unpleasant, but it was not comfortable, either. I tried to take a step forward away from Altaïr, but found myself sandwiched between the horse and him; I was stuck between the two.

The pressure on my back changed as he gently leaned into me. I could have sworn I felt his ears brush my face as he cupped my elbows with his hands.

"Let me go," I whispered as his hands slid up my arm and took a hold of mine.

"I always had to tell her, 'it won't hurt you, it won't hurt you.'" he breathed as he lifted my shaking hand up to the horse's face. The horse lowered its head down so I could touch its nose. It felt soft, like warm velvet.

"Horses are perfect. They are one with their masters," he continued quietly. It was probably my imagination, but I could have sworn he was close enough to my ear that I could feel the stubble of his chin on my skin. The horse snorted, "When their master is afraid, they sense that fear, and use it to fly with the wind."

I could feel my body relax in his grip. But suddenly, his hold on my wrist disappeared, making me frown. I heard Alex's familiar giggling, and saw Farley walking up to me. Alex was strolling casually next to her. She stopped in her tracks and eyed me.

"You don't usually like horses... There you are Malik! I was wondering where you went," she said. I shrugged and forced myself to stroke the horse's face to look convincing.

"Where did you get the horse?" I asked.

"That's Kadar, remember? I told you about him yesterday," she leaned down and scratched Malik behind his ears. Though he appeared to enjoy it, I could not help but think that he still looked indignant, "he found me."

The horse swung its head away from my hand and nuzzled Alex as he climbed up on the fence. I thought to pick him up and take him away from the huge creature, but fought against it as Alex appeared to really be enjoying himself as the horse's long tongue licked his hand emphatically.

"Ew!" He giggled, "It's slimy!"

I decided to leave Farley and Alex with the horse and began to head back inside. Just as I made to step through the door, I noticed Farley attempting to slide onto the horse's back from the top of the fence. Alex was watching her calmly, looking like he had no desire to follow her. At first, the horse did not appear to want her on its back, but when Malik had leapt up onto the fence next to Alex, the horse calmed down again. This place was so strange; the animals all behaved so strangely.

I sat in the kitchen and drank tea while I listened to Farley and Alex outside. I hoped that horse would not spook and run away with one of them. I didn't think it would ever come back.

A few hours later, it was beginning to get dark, and Farley and Alex were still outside. The local trade kids had come back by to get in a few more hours of playtime, and Farley had decided they would play a game called 'The Witch is Out Tonight.' She and I used to play it when we were children. It was more or less Hide-and-Seek, only the seeker was supposed to hide and jump out to catch the others. I had decided to take the time to catch up with the book I was reading, Tana French's _In the Woods_.

I was at a particularly engrossing part when the door to the kitchen burst open and Farley came storming in. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide. I immediately looked up at her.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

She slammed her hands on the table, "Rio! Get the flashlights, we've lost Alex!"

At first, I thought she was trying to be dramatic. If Alex had been it, he'd want to hide somewhere for a long time until everyone came looking for him. Then he'd be able to get them all out at one time. Sometimes, my son was too smart for his own good, "I thought that was the point of the game," I said. She shook her head.

"He wasn't the seeker. One moment, he was talking about something called 'Avalar,' the next moment, he was gone."

I froze. Farley didn't know much, if anything, in regards to Alex's Avalar character. This was not something she could make a story about.

"_You lost him?"_ I shrieked, "Farley, you were supposed to be watching him!"

"I know! I know!" she groaned, grabbing a flashlight from a box. She fumbled around before pulling another one out and tossing it to me. I reflexively caught it, but for a moment did not know what to do with it. My son was missing! What if something happened to him? "I swear, I only turned my back for a moment. A moment of a moment!"

Instinctively, I instructed Farley to help me check around the house to be sure he had not just wandered back and slipped inside without us knowing. But he was nowhere to be found.

"He's got to be outside. Maybe he went to play with the horses." I said as we rushed out the door. Even though the sun had not fully set, it was still very dim.

Farley stopped me halfway to the pasture and pointed, "Hey Rio, why are there only two horses?" she asked. I followed her finger. Sure, enough, there were only two horses standing in the field. The white one was missing.

_Oh god, someone__'__s kidnapped him!_

Kadar whickered to us as we approached. Farley rubbed his nose, "If only you could understand us, you'd know we need help," she whispered to him. Kadar tossed his head and snorted. "What are you trying to tell us?"

I shined the light in Farley's face, "Farley, enough with that. You're talking to a horse."

"I think he saw where Alex went…"

"Farley…"

But she wasn't listening. Damn my sister and her Bryer pigheadedness. She pulled Kadar's face down to hers by the end of his halter and stared straight into his eyes, "You can understand me, can't you? We have to find Alex." Farley climbed up onto the fence and sat on the top rung. She took Kadar by his halter pulled him closer to her

"What are you doing?" I asked, alarmed.

Farley patted the Kadar's neck, "You coming?"

"Farley, you know I don't like horses…"

"But he knows where Alex went!"

"_Farley. _He's. Just. A. _Horse._"

Farley squared her jaw. Before I could even comprehend what was going on, she dropped from her spot on the fence. I felt her lift me from the ground and clumsily thrust me towards the horse's massive flanks. She failed to get me on top, of course, which resulted in an agitated whinny on Kadar's part, followed by a flailing kick at nothing. I yelped in protest, and finally gave up against my sister. She was so stubborn at times.

"Fine! Fine!" I yelled. Farley let me go and climbed onto Kadar's back effortlessly. Reluctantly, I climbed up onto the fence and slid onto the horse's back like I had seen in the movies. It had been difficult to do.

_Too high, far too high, _the horse whickered. I had a feeling it was laughing at me.

"Hold on, Rio," Farley yelled, giving the horse a kick. I quickly clung to Farley as Kadar's pace sped up dramatically, and soon we were galloping across the open field toward the edge of the dig site. The rocks and tents became a blur and dust and dirt formed small clouds in our wake. I held on tighter to Farley as Kadar jumped over a ditch. For a brief moment, I felt like we had been flying.

We were galloping in the direction of the main section of the dig. The large rocks that shielded the mouth of the underground castle were getting closer. I could make out the shape of the white horse against the dark clay. Kadar slowed to a stop, his breathing heavy, and Farley helped me get down. My legs felt like jelly.

"I'll go check the trenches, that's where we were playing earlier," Farley said, taking Kadar's halter, "You check the rocks."

I nodded, still dazed by my wild ride across the desert. Farley took off in one direction, leaving me standing bewildered.

_Alex, where are you?_

It was as though someone was listening to my thoughts, because I suddenly heard Alex laughing and running about. His voice had sounded as if it came from above me, and I followed it to the top of a very steep rock.

_Alex, don__'__t go up there, I mean it, _I had said, _Just sit make sure you don__'__t go past the third step._

Of course. He had wanted to go up the stone steps when we were at the dig earlier, even though I was sure there was nothing up there.

I climbed the crudely-cut stairs to the top of the rock. They led up to a flat platform; it was like a miniature plateau of sorts. When I got to the very top, I came to a sudden halt when I saw Alex and Altaïr playing with the wooden swords that the Knights of the Crumbling Cookie had been using that morning. Only, to my horror, Alex was standing on a large rock in the centre of the flat platform, so that he nearly came up to Altaïr's chin.

"Avalar, I can't hit you when I'm up here. It's hard," Alex whined. My heart skipped a beat when he stumbled and nearly fell. Altaïr caught him effortlessly. Alex looked like he was going to cry and give up, or scream and throw one of his usual tantrums, but Altaïr stood him on his feet and knelt down in front of him.

"Don't give up, Alexander, an assassin never gives up. Not even at the very end," he said quietly, putting a hand on Alex's shoulder. I froze.

_An assassin never gives up._

An _assassin_? He was an _assassin?_ The same kind of assassin that is hired to kill people? Murder for hire?

I suddenly felt a surge of inexplicable fear race up my spine. My five-year-old son and I were being haunted by the ghost of an _assassin. _Someone who made a living killing people, who made a living tearing families apart. It now made sense as to why Alex had initially called Altaïr a _ninja_ lion, and it certainly explained his weapons, his clothing. He had killed people in his lifetime, I told myself. Suddenly, I did not like the fact that my son was playing with this man.

Before I could run to grab him, Alex stood up with his sword. He swung it lightly, hitting Altaïr on the head.

"Dead," Alex declared triumphantly. I felt my breath catch in my throat, remembering the night I had decided to leave Paul for good.

"_Who were you talking to in Boston for thirty minutes, Rio?" he had demanded, cornering me in the bathroom, "Don'__t you know how much long distance calls, are?"_

"_I had to talk to my father, he'__s been assigned to a project coming up. Who knows when I__'__ll see him again?"_

_I felt his hands around my throat, "This phone bill is going to break us! We aren__'__t even going to have any money to buy groceries!" His grip was tightening, I couldn__'__t breathe. From somewhere in the hall, I could hear Alex screaming at him to stop, "I__'__ll kill you! I__'__ll kill you dead!"_

"I know you're there. I can hear you breathing."

The toneless voice startled me, and I jumped. Both Altaïr and Alex were looking at me. I realized I was shaking and breathing rapidly.

"How _dare _you!" I shrieked, storming toward Altaïr and pointing my finger in his face, "I thought I'd lost him! I thought Paul had taken him away. If something ever happed to him, my world would end!"

"Mom, I'm okay…" Alex began, looking perplexed. I swooped down and lifted him up, cradling him against me. I glared at Altaïr, "I hate you! You do nothing but make me think I'm going insane! I hate you so much!" his hood was down, so I could take in all of that young face of his. Could he really be a killer? There was no way, he was too handsome. I cupped the back of Alex's head in my hand and turned away to head back down the rock.

Going down had been much easier than climbing up.

..xoxoxox..

When we got back to the house, I felt inexplicably angry, and ended up terrifying my sister. Malik was nonchalantly sitting on the kitchen table, watching me, and the moment I saw him I just snapped and threw a full roll of paper towels at him. I shouted at the him, blaming him for having only three legs, for having creepy blue eyes, and for behaving so strangely. I blamed him for Farley losing Alex.

This made Farley very angry. She shouted at me in defense of the cat, saying it was not his fault that he lost his leg in a bear trap a long time ago. I was not sure how she knew this, but it made me even angrier at her, and our arguing resulted in her slapping me before leaving the room and taking the shaken furball with her.

Alex cried. He did not like it when people fought, especially when it was over him. It was heartbreaking.

I didn't sleep that night, partly because I was angry and partly because I was afraid of the dreams. Instead, I spent the entire night laying next to Alex, who, after I had calmed him down, slept peacefully while I read my book.

Then it happened. The air rippled and every thing became silent and grey.

_No not again…_

I stood up. She was back, the girl I had seen back in home in Pennsylvania. I noticed a silvery mist swirling over the floor. It morphed and changed, occasionally morphing into shapes of different animals. She stood briefly in my doorway before laughing and swiftly walking away. I followed her down the stairs and outside. The white and black horses were still in the pasture, but the chestnut was not.

I heard the strange chanting voices from nowhere as the mist on the floor spilled onto the ground, swimming at the feet of the girl as she stood in the yard. She was wearing her mask; blood dripped from the end of a silver and black scythe. She was laughing.

"Why am I here?" I asked as she lifted the mask up so I could see her face. She was smiling and blood dripped down her face from two circles drawn round her eyes. I was afraid.

"I was too late to stop her from calling him. But, she isn't a threat anymore," Hanan laughed before disappearing. Colours and sound came rushing back. I saw the chestnut horse in the field, dozing by the fence.

I was confused. Nothing made sense. As I headed back to my room, I could see Farley on the sofa, her cat sat on one end watching her sleep. I found Alex still sleeping silently. The sun was starting to rise, casting the world in a red glow.

A few hours later, Alex's stirring caught my attention. He looked confused at first, as though he had forgotten where he was, but he smiled at me anyway.

"Morning, Alex" I greeted. He rubbed his eyes and looked over at the window. I didn't look to see what he was looking at; even if the ghost was there I didn't care. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, still rubbing his eyes. I took his hand and led him out. As we passed my door, I noticed a note taped up to it in Farley's writing:

_I__'__ve gone to the hidden city. If you want to find me, you can use this map._

There was another piece of paper taped up to the door behind the letter. It was a crudely drawn map that she had scribbled on a bit of paper. I frowned, confused, and tucked both pieces of paper into my pocket. Alex and I continued downstairs.

To my surprise, all of the members staying on site were in the kitchen. They were all sitting at the table, every one of their faces were solemn. There was a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hanging around in the air, and I noticed about four of them were smoking nervously.

"Dad?" I squeaked. Even he was smoking. His cigarette was balanced on the right side of his mouth, and he was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. He jumped at my voice and looked at me over the rim of his glasses, "Dad, why's everyone here? Is something the matter?"

"Rio, something awful has happened." my father said through the cigarette between his teeth.

I lifted Alex and cradled him, "What?"

"Jessica…" He began, taking his cigarette out and flicking it into an overused ashtray, "Jessica was found dead this morning at the site."

"_What?"_

"Yes, I'm writing to the authorities now. We don't know what happened yet, only that there is a large hole in her skull."

…_Puncture wounds aren__'__t the sign of disease. They were sacrificed…_

…_I was too late to stop her from calling him. But she isn__'__t a threat, anymore…_

…_Farley. _


	8. Into The Gloom

-1The house was beginning to feel like a prison.

After Jessica's body had been discovered, Dad had ordered the dig site to be completely locked down while he wrote to the authorities, and to the university. Those scientists who were staying at the hotel were to return to their rooms until further notice, and those scientists who were staying on site were ordered to stay in the farmhouse. Absolutely no one was allowed in or out until the premises was completely secure.

Telling Dad that Farley had wandered off had been a most terrible idea. He got flustered and stressed out, and began writing letters asking all of the on-site interpreters to get in touch with anyone from the trade camps to see if they had seen Farley. I tried to explain to him that she was at the dig, as I was sure that was what she had meant by "Hidden City," but my father insisted that the dig had been completely quarantined until further notice, and that she wouldn't have been able to get in without being noticed.

Dad had been furiously scribbling even more letters in his meticulous handwriting to one person or another when I had asked him if there was anything I could do to help him, and he told me to just stay in my room with Alex. His tone was condescending, it made me feel like I was eight years old again, but I listened to him anyway.

Alex was beginning to get bored. I had tried giving him his Clifford books to read while we waited for things to settle down, but reading did not last very long. I even tried reading to him, although it did not take me very long to realize that he was barely paying attention to the words. Instead, he took to watching the window and the door that lead to the roof. I wondered if he was watching Altaïr, or if he really just wanted to go outside. After fifteen minutes of trying unsuccessfully to read a story together, I gave him his little die-cast eagle and just told him to play quietly while I finished my book.

Half an hour into the next chapter, I noticed Alex had gotten very quiet. Suspicious, I put my book away and found him sitting on the roof, peering out at the fields in the distance. Altaïr was sitting next to him. They both had their knees drawn. Alex's arms were wrapped around his legs, while Altaïr's arms were propped lazily on his knees. They were talking quietly with one another. From their tones, I could tell Altaïr was telling a story.

"Was she pretty?" Alex asked in the middle of one of Altaïr's sentences, "Like my mom?" Altaïr didn't seem to notice the interruption. If he had, he did a very good job of masking any amount of annoyance.

Without skipping a beat, Altaïr nodded, "She was beautiful. Very beautiful."

They went silent, staring out at the fields in the distance. Alex noticed me first and smiled as he waved at me.

"Hi, Mom!" he chirped. Altaïr looked up at me, his face hidden under his hood. I smiled at Alex, and gave Altaïr a short, curt nod.

"What are you doing up here?"

"The house is too stuffy," he answered, crinkling his nose up as though he had just smelled something bad.

I nodded in agreement, "Definitely too stuffy."

Without asking, I came and sat next to them, looking out at the distant shapes of the tents and scaffolding of the dig. I sighed.

"Your Aunt Farley is out there…" I began as Alex leaned against me. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him gently, "I want to go get her, but your grandfather is making that difficult."

_Damn that Bryer pride._

Alex pointed at Altaïr, "Avalar can help find her!" he said, "grandad doesn't talk to him, and he saved Princess Seri once, so he can save Aunt Farley!"

I cast a quick glance at Altaïr, who was looking down at his hands as though they were suddenly very interesting. I cleared my throat and he looked up. The sun was shining directly into his hood, enhancing the sharp features on his face. His eyes were watching me cautiously.

"Could you do that?" I asked after a long moment.

He cast a look over the mountains, and then looked back at me.

"I could, but I am not sure if we would find her…" his voice trailed off before he could finish his sentence, but I was rather sure it ended with not finding Farley alive.

"What do you mean?"

He sighed, "Narmein is a labyrinth. Even those who had been born there had a tendency to get lost and starve to death."

The words weighed heavily on my mind. Why would anyone create a city _designed_ to lose its own citizens and leave them to starvation?

But I wanted to look for Farley. I had to look for her, she was my sister.

"But we won't get lost," Alex said proudly, nodding up at Altaïr as though asking for reassurance that this was true. He was so sure of himself.

Altaïr, as it was evident by the expression on his face, was not as confident. I could detect a hint of weariness in his face. Nevertheless, he smiled at Alex—an act which nearly made my body melt—and he chuckled lightly. The small bit of laughter made a whistling sound through his nose.

"No, we will not get lost, Alexander."

Alex looked ecstatic, "Let's find Aunt Farley!"

A few minutes later, I told Alex to stay in our room to discuss our escape plan with Altaïr while I prepared for our grand escape. I crept down into the kitchen, listening to the various sounds of the other archaeologists in the house. One was listening to the radio, while another was chattering furiously to someone on a telephone in a thick Australian accent. Dad was still in the kitchen, chain-smoking, and he was talking to someone on his cell phone. I assumed it was someone from the university.

I packed four peanut butter sandwiches, four miniature bags of potato chips, two bottles of juice, and two bottles of Deer Park water into one of my bags. It was the baby blue bag that Farley had knit for me a few Christmases ago. While Dad's back was turned, I also snagged two flashlights and an extra first-aid kit that they used at the dig.

When I returned to my room, Altaïr and Alex were sitting at the window.

"Avalar is going to go out the window, and we're going to follow him."

I supposed this method of escape was more foolproof than just trying to sneak out passed Dad, like I was going to suggest. The second floor of the farmhouse was not entirely high off of the ground, and it would be easy to jump down. I agreed with their plan as I watched Alex and Altaïr open the window. Altaïr effortlessly threw himself over and dropped down, holding his arms out.

"Jump, Alexander," I heard him call from outside.

Alex walked toward the window and perched himself on the sill. It took all I had to not grab him and pull him back to me. I was terrified that he was going to hurt himself.

"Alex, be careful," I warned. He flashed a knowing smile at me before dropping down. I felt my hear leap into my throat.

"It's okay, Mom!" he called a moment later. I sighed in relief and followed suit. "Avalar's gonna catch!"

I have never been afraid of heights, and so sliding from the opened window into Altaïr's outstretched arms was no trouble for me. He caught me effortlessly, straining very little when I dropped into his arms. His body felt impossibly warm.

_I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold_, I told myself.

He flashed me the briefest of smiles—it resembled more of a flicker of movement in the corner of his lips than an actual smile—before putting me on my feet.

At first, we thought to take the horses to Narmein, but then we remembered that heading to the barn would mean walking across the windows, and we would be seen. Instead, we decided to get there by foot with Altaïr in the lead, and Alex at his heels.

..xoxoxoxox..

I leaned on Altaïr's shoulder as we peered into the dark tunnel, taking in the faint smell of leather that lingered around him. The darkness inside the tunnel was thick, engulfing. I just knew there was something lurking around inside, ready to eat us.

"If Farley went down there, she's braver than me," I said.

"Hello!" Alex shouted, laughing as he listened to his voice echo off the walls. He went to step down into the tunnel and I snagged the back of his shirt in my hand, stopping him in place. He shot me an annoyed look, which I ignored. I nodded in Altaïr's direction, who got the message and stepped down first.

I could make out the faint glow of torch light at the end of the tunnel, and for a moment felt a great sense of relief; my sister had not gone far into the labyrinth. There was a human-shaped void along the tunnel walls, and I grinned. Farley knew I would come after her, and she was coming back to greet me. I wouldn't have to venture far into the labyrinth, after all.

But my relief was short-lived when I realized that the void I saw on the walls had crept further into the tunnel and disappeared.

Next to me, I could hear Altaïr grind his teeth and murmur something under his breath. His voice was so low that I couldn't really hear him, but the tone in his voice was so venomous that I was afraid to ask him to repeat himself. I was unsure if I really wanted to know. He began forward, gesturing for Alex to stay behind him.

In a way, I was relieved; it would be _Altaïr _wandering around the pitch-darkness, and not me. In another way, it frightened me even more. I did not want Alex and I to be left alone.

Alex did not seemed phased by the darkness at all. He confidently walked in front of me and behind Altaïr, using a stick that I had picked up outside the caverns as a walking-cane. He had wanted to walk in front of Altaïr as he lit torches, but Altaïr firmly disagreed and told him to stay behind him. Much to my surprise, Alex obeyed and remained between Altaïr and I, proudly telling us which tunnel he wanted to take, and which ones he thought were booby-trapped. Only once had Altaïr refused to take a certain tunnel, and somehow I knew it was because that certain tunnel had been a faux tunnel, and _did _have booby traps.

We stepped through the lit corridor and into another room, which Altaïr was ever-so-diligently lighting, like some kind of angel of light or something. When Altaïr had finished lighting a few torches, Alex began exploring as much of the chamber as he could, looking at the painted pictures on the walls and asking what things were.

I could hear Altaïr quietly murmuring to him answers for each of his questions, but could not quite discern what exactly he was saying. I shined my flashlight on a small statue sitting on a nook carved into the wall several feet above the floor. It was in the shape of a slinky Siamese cat, and had been completely carved out of the blackest obsidian I had ever seen. It took me a moment to realize that the statue was missing a leg.

I was startled when I stepped on something that crunched beneath my foot and grimaced, hoping that it had been a large spider and that it was dead. I did not want to look at it to be sure, however, and tried to shake the remnants of whatever it was off my shoe. To my dismay, I couldn't get whatever it was off my shoe, and I could still feel it crunch ever so slightly with each step I took.

I had to jog to catch up to Alex and Altaïr, as they had completely crossed the chamber. They were looking along the walls. Altaïr had already lit all of the torches, and was very quietly murmuring to himself as he ran his hands along the stone. I assumed that he was looking for a switch to open the next door. Alex was mimicking him. I'm not sure if Alex knew exactly what Altaïr was doing, or if he was just trying to look like a leader as he tried to find a switch with Altaïr. In an ironic way, it reminded me of the brave way he slid the panels of that marble casket beneath our house into place, ultimately releasing Altaïr.

"No more doors," Alex said as I approached. I couldn't tell if he had been talking to Altaïr, or to me, as he had not looked at either one of us. I heard Altaïr mutter an agreement, and I leaned against a wall.

A dash of white in the dim torchlight caught my eye, and I shined my flashlight onto the wall on the opposite side of the chamber. There were two tall statues there, both jackals sitting upright like very obedient housedogs. Between them, there was another nook carved into the wall several feet off the floor. This nook did not have a statue in it. In fact, I could just barely tell that there was no back to the nook at all. It was just a square carved into the wall. It looked like some sort an air vent. An arrow had been drawn in chalk on the wall above the nook, pointing down toward it. It was definitely Farley's, I could tell by a little smiley-face drawn next to the arrow. Farley must have gone through there.

"She went out that way. And there's no way the three of us could squeeze through there," I pointed at the nook.

"I can fit!" Alex chirped.

"You're most certainly not going there without me, and there's no way I can fit through there; so _no_."

The three of us stood for a moment, neither one of us looking at the other one. I heard Altaïr whispering to himself, still running his four-fingered hand along the wall.

"Do you know where to go?" I asked him.

Altaïr didn't answer me, just kept running his hand along the stone. I sighed in frustration at both Farley for wandering off on her own, and at Altaïr for not answering my question, and fell back against the wall. My shoulder clipped the muzzle on one of the stone jackals, causing a dull pain to race through my shoulder. I yelped and jumped back, watching as the statue began to _move_. The obedient-looking stone dogs stood upright on their back legs, and their front legs coming up to their chests. They both came to hold a stone staff that seemed to sprout from their hands.

When they were done moving, they came to resemble men from the neck-down, their heads still in the shape of jackals. I had half-expected them to step down from their posts and chase after us, but instead, the stone jackal-men just slid into place in a tall nook in the wall behind them.

"_Cool!"_ Alex laughed, clapping. I just took a deep breath and tried to push my heart back down my throat.

Dust fell from a sharp crevice in the wall, creating a rectangular shape, and a door lurched open and spun sideways, allowing us a double-door access into the next chamber.

"You did it, Mom!" Alex chirped as I crept toward him. I watched Altaïr as he slid into the next room, almost wincing at the intensity of his stride. Alex took my hand and led me along.

The door had led us not to a chamber, but down a long, narrow corridor. There weren't any torches here. If there were, Altaïr had not lit them. It was so dark. I could not see anything in front of me, not even my hand when I held it up to my face. I could tell Alex was having a hard time with it too, as his grip on my hand had tightened immensely.

The corridor was silent, too. So silent, that I could almost make out Altaïr's whispers in front of me. Alex was breathing very quickly, he must have felt suffocated in the corridor. Once, he bumped into me, reprimanding me for going to slow and telling me I needed to walk faster as he sent me into Altaïr. I was overcome with the scent of sandalwood as my cheek brushed against his back, the linen of his robes strangely soft against my skin.

_He's warm, again…_

Altaïr seemed rather annoyed by being bumped into, I could tell by the exasperated whistle that came out his nose when he took a deep breath, but he did not say much aside from telling me very calmly that I needed to slow down before I fell over.

For a moment, I was glad that it was dark; he wouldn't be able to see me blush.

_He's an assassin_. _He _killed _for a living._

The corridor eventually opened up into a large chamber lit with odd colored crystals that had been set into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Altaïr was standing in the centre of the room, his hands hanging listlessly at his sides. His fingers were clenching and unclenching as he looked around.

"The first time I saw you, it was here," he said quietly. His voice had taken on a strange tone. It was uncharacteristically soft, almost nostalgic. He did not say who 'you' was, but I knew he had been talking about Seri.

I watched him as he stared around the room. After a moment, he turned toward me, and pointed at another air vent in the ceiling. This one had no arrow. "I had been sent on a mission, but I had been arrogant and hasty, and did not do a proper investigation," his voice was suddenly normal again, aloof and toneless, "I obtained a faux map of Narmein, and crawled into that alcove there. That is where I first saw her."

I glanced around the room, feeling goosebumps race up my spine as the room quickly fell cold. I could hear Alex asking if Altaïr was talking about Princess Seri, but his voice was far away.

The room began to shimmer. I could still see everything in colour, and the air wasn't rippling, so I knew I was not about to be visited by Hanan's ghost. I felt something pass through me, and turned to see transparent people walking into the corridor from which we came. Along the wall, I noticed Hanan and Seri standing together, laughing and joking as though they were school children. The crystals shimmered again, and the girls faded into nothingness. For a brief moment the room was empty, until two women in crocodile armour marched in, a wagon between them. On that wagon was a huge marble slab. They were talking to one another in a language I couldn't understand.

I felt someone tug on my arm. The two woman vanished.

"Mom, come on. We found a way into the next room," Alex pulled me behind him, the crystals shimmering and fading as we left.

..xoxoxoxox..

"Oh _wow! _Look at this, Avalar! This is so cool!!"

"Alex put that down!" I shouted as he attempted to pick up a deadly-looking dagger lying on a stone table lining the wall of the second chamber we stepped into. I made to pick him up to pull him away from the table, but Altaïr got to him faster, taking his hand and leading him back to us. I could hear him quietly reprimanding Alex under his breath. At least, that's what it sounded like; I could distinctly hear him mutter something about thinking before leaping. I took a moment to look around.

This must have been an armoury of sorts, perhaps a torture chamber. The entire room was lined with weapons that hadn't been used in ages. cobwebs hung between the blades and shimmered in our dim torch light, they looked silvery, reaching over to touch one I stumbled on a gap in the floor and took a tumble into the side of a rack of swords. Several fell and sparked as they struck the floor. As I was recovering my footing, I noticed that some of the sparks had lit up some oil that filled a long, thin trough in front of us, effectively lighting up the entire room.

How my sister could explore such a dark place, I'll never know.

"I'm hungry..." Alex said looking at me. Sighing, I took out one of the sandwiches that I had packed.

After Alex was satisfied, we walked down a corridor that had many more hallways leading away from it. Alex had decided to count the doors out loud. The had gone down two side channels and lit this area as well. Altair had vanished from my sight after we left the weaponry room.

Alex stopped walking, making me stop as I was holding his hand he was looking over at one of the doors. I got an overwhelming sense of despair as we walked over to it. "Alex can you stay put until I come back?" I said looking down at him. He nodded and went to sit down on some fallen rubble.

The ceiling lit itself when I walked into the next room. There were so many crystals lining the ceiling that it seemed to have a daylight look to it.

It was very beautifully decorated. An enormous, moth-eaten tapestry hung across one wall, its picture depicting a city with a flock of birds flying above it. In the far corner of the room, there was a very old canopy bed. There had once been a curtain here, but it had long been ripped away, leaving nothing but a few scraps of dilapidated silk dangling in the corners. There was a stone table adorned in jewels sitting next to the bed, in which a stack of gold bracelets sitting in the centre, all coated in layers of thick dust. I had never been here before, but the room seemed so familiar to me; it felt like home, like my room in Pennsylvania. I felt like I knew every inch, every nook and cranny. I felt like I knew where everything was, and why it was there.

But this room wasn't mine, it was _hers_.

"Seri…"

The whisper had come from behind me. I looked up to see Altaïr as he brushed passed me into the room. He sat on the bed. His motions were careful, delicate, like he was a child tip-toeing around the room in which his mother was sleeping in. He looked at the table for a moment before reaching onto the table and plucking something small from it. I had to squint to see exactly what it was.

A ring.

He held it in the palm of his hand and let out the smallest of sighs. I wished his hood wasn't up so that I could properly look at his face. I made to walk over and sit beside him when I heard Alex scream.

"Alex…"

In a fraction of an instant, Altaïr went from sitting on the bed to rushing through the door, his robes billowing behind him. I ran after him, desperately trying to follow Alex's screams. We found him in another corridor, his back pressed against the wall.

"Mom! What is it?" He cried, pointing down the corridor.

I looked down and yelped, grabbing Alex and pulling him closer to me.

"This is why I tell you to stay where I tell you!" I reprimanded as I reached for anything I could use as a weapon, which happened to be a rock from the ground.

"_You,_" I heard Altaïr growl softly. His voice was fierce, menacing.

It looked like a large dog, a Doberman or Jackal, perhaps, but it had sharper claws, and had no hair. The top half of its head was just a skull, its eyes sockets two empty voids. It had no lips, however if it had, they would have been curled back in a fierce snarl, exposing its wickedly-sharp teeth. It was like a creature from a nightmare.

A strange mist swirled in the air around it, and I could he it tapping its sharp claws on the floor, as though impatient with waiting.

I heard the sound of metal sliding against metal, and, to my horror, I saw a long, sharp blade shoot cleanly out from the bracer around Altaïr's wrist. It protruded from the empty space where his missing finger should have been.

"Keep going," Altaïr said to me, not taking his eyes off of the hideous creature.

"_Excuse _me?" I sputtered.

If he answered me, I didn't hear it. The creature let out a wicked cackle that seemed to drown out all the sound. In a chilling way, the cackling sounded familiar, like I had heard it before, but I couldn't quite tell from where. I heard Altaïr shout something beneath its laughter, but I could not discern his words. The monster's cackling quickly began to fade as it stared at Alex and I, turning its head so that it was staring at us with one empty eye socket. As soon as the echo of its eerie laughter had died away, and before Altaïr could make a move to kill it, the creature faded into the shadows and the mist that had once swirled around it was quickly dissipating.

..xoxoxox..

"This place is amazing," I murmured as we stepped out into an enormous cavern. There was a large number of stone bridges stretching across the cavern in all directions, most seemed to criss-cross over each other and run under others. I could not quite figure out how anyone could have built this; it was so beautiful and intricate. I carried my flash light in front of me, careful to keep Alex behind me to prevent him from running ahead. There was absolutely no light here, it was completely dark. my flash light flicked every now and again signaling that the batteries were going to die soon.

Altaïr led us to an impossibly narrow bridge that had no rails and was cracking and crumbling in several places. He crossed the bridge effortlessly, crouching low and perfectly balanced, and turned around at the other side of the cavern. He wordlessly signaled us over. I allowed Alex to go first, as he weighed a lot less than me.

"Alex, be careful," I whispered to him as he began crossing the bridge, crouching low with his arms spread out from his sides, balancing just as effortlessly as Altaïr had been. He was half-way across the bridge when I stepped on. At first, I was going to crouch low just like the two of them had, if my five-year-old son could cross without a problem it should not have been hard for me, but I quickly changed my mind when I found it difficult to keep from looking into the darkness below.

The bridge was so high up that I could not even see the bottom. Step by step, I slowly tip-toed across the bridge like a tight rope walker, my heart pounding when I began to wobble.

_Just don't look down, Rio, and you'll be fine,_ I said to myself as I kept my eyes locked on Alex, who was now being plucked off the end of the bridge by Altaïr.

I got half-way across the bridge when I heard it: the loud, crumbling noise of the bridge beginning to cave in. I felt the level of the bridge shift as it began to fall away. Forgetting my pounding heart, I rushed forwards.

"Mom!" Alex called frantically. I saw Altaïr's robes billow around him as he turned around and began back across the bridge, his hand outstretched toward me.

"Alex!" I called back. There was no chance of me running across the rest of the way before the bridge completely fell apart. _I have to jump,_ I told myself, stretching my arm out in a vain hope that Altair would pull me to safety. I braced myself, trying to push off from the bridge, but the stone would not quite let me. I felt it crumble beneath me and lost my footing. In an instant, I was falling backwards.

Time seems to slow to an impossible pace when one feels like he or she is about to die. The roaring wind in my ears that I heard and felt at first as I began to fall quickly died to a whisper, and Alex's shouts and screams became morphed and distorted. I saw his head peek over the edge of the sturdy part of the bridge, Altaïr was crouched beside him with his arm held, as though he still thought he had a chance of reaching for me.

"Alex," I whispered to myself as their faces began to fade into the darkness, "Alex, I love you."

..xoxoxoxox..

_The sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon, casting in a golden glow that sent long, dark shadows across the land. I was standing on a very high ledge, looking down. Below me was a flat platform, the one with the crudely cut stairs. Only, it wasn't eroded anymore. It was beautiful. Jade green moss covered the entire platform, giving it a healthy green glow. A tiny, gnarled tree stood in the centre of the platform, its leaves littered with tiny pink blossoms. I wondered how a tree so beautiful could survive in the arid weather. Perhaps it was alchemy._

_There were two people standing under the blossoming branches. One, the taller of the two, wore pure white robes and long leather boots. His pointed hood was drawn. _

_Altaïr._

_The shorter of the two was wearing a simple, white linen dress, a hood also drawn around her face. Locks of very long, wavy dark hair were spilling from the hood, almost hiding the parts of her face that the hood could not._

_She was standing directly in front of him, her back against his chest. They were staring at the sunset, both looking completely at ease._

"_A son?" he asked quietly. His hands took a hold of her elbow, and he made to pull her closer to him._

"_A son," she answered, following his lead and leaning against him._

_There were shadows behind them. They had been inconspicuous at first, but I noticed them, now. The shadows started moving, morphing, as several people stepped out into the dying sunlight. They were women, all wearing lion skulls and carrying deadly, sharp-looking weapons. The Matriarch stood amongst them, and Hanan was beside her, her jackal-skull mask sitting atop her head so her face could be seen. She was smiling, but it wasn't a nice smile; it was cruel, sadistic._

"_Watch out!" I shouted, even though I knew they couldn__'__t hear me. I felt helpless as I watched them, standing so peacefully together, completely unaware of the silent warriors approaching from behind them. Hanan pulled Seri roughly away from Altaïr as another woman in a lion skull pushed him aside. Seri let out a muffled cry._

_Though I could still hear her cries, the world began to blur and shift. Suddenly, I was no longer on the ledge anymore, but on the platform. I watched as Seri was flung to the ground a few feet in front of me. She was shouting and screaming while Altaïr wrenched himself from his captive's grasp and dived toward her. He reached behind his back and unsheathed a beautiful, glimmering sword._

_Feet scuffed the mossy ground and sparks flew as metal hit metal. It was almost like a complicated dance, watching Altaïr fight the warriors; like watching a fight scene in a movie where the choreography isn't so rehearsed. He was calm, almost listless in his actions, like an eagle on a breeze. The women in the lion masks fought with a strange cat-like grace._

"_You betrayed my trust, Hanan! I thought I could trust you with a secret like this!" Seri screamed venomously at her sister. Hanan gazed at her with a sarcastic look._

"_You know nothing of trust, you stupid wench. Do you not remember how I trusted you not to tell Mother about Malik? Hold your tongue before speaking of such hypocrisies." Hanan seethed. One of the women grabbed Altaïr and threw him down, giving Hanan ample room to kick Seri, who curled in a protective ball around her belly._

"_Hanan, that was a year ago!" Seri managed._

"_It still feels like yesterday!" _

_Hanan placed her mask over her face and danced over to Altaïr, the way she moved wasn't as graceful as the lioness warriors but it was fast and she looked like she wanted the kill, and didn't need help to get it._

_Altair had picked himself back up and made another dive toward Seri. This time, Hanan would not have it. She grabbed his arm and yanked him away from Seri, throwing him face-first into a rock. He stumbled, dazed, but regained his composer quickly._

_He was fighting them off as well as he could, but they attacked as a team; much like a lioness's hunting party. I watched as Hanan reached into a little pouch attached to her hip, and pulled something out of it. There was a bright flash, and a loud crack, as she brought her fist down upon Altaïr. I realized it had been one of the pellets my father's team had uncovered from a jar in a trench. Once the light faded several multi-colored serpents coiled tightly around Altaïr's arms, pinning them against his body. He struggled furiously and grit his teeth; the snakes were tightening their grip on him._

"_Take him back to the city. I must have a talk with Seri," the Matriarch rasped as she walked toward Seri. The women in lion skulls nodded, and silently carried Altaïr away. _

"_Look at me, Seri," the Matriarch said as she removed her headdress. She looked wise with age, and spoke as though she had lived a thousand years. She had a kind face, which I had not expected._

"_Why?" Seri whispered, glaring at the older woman._

"_This is for your own good."_

"_No. You do not care about me." _

_Everything faded into black._

_..xoxoxox.._

There was something cold and wet against my face. I tried to swipe at it at first, but the feeling would not go away. Somewhere in the far distance, I could hear the sound of water lapping against an embankment. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

I was lying on the shore of an underground lake. Quite interestingly, the shore was not made out of sand as one would have expected, but instead, it was made out of stone. Even more bizarre was the strange, springy moss that clung to the stone. It felt unusually soft to the touch, even for moss, and it glowed faintly in the dim light.

I sat up slowly, trying to blink away the feeling of the beginning of a headache, and looked around. The underground lake that I was sitting by was in a large cavern dimly lit by large glowing crystals that twisted up from the ground like strange lampposts.

In the dim light, I could see forgotten statues of gods and goddesses from various religions, though most appeared Egyptian in origin. There were a few still standing, though most were laying flat on the ground where they had fallen down years ago.

There was a rustling noise from above me, and I looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern. A number of stone pillars were randomly scattered throughout the lake, protruding from the water like tall, skinny stone monsters. At first, I thought they had gone all the way to the ceiling of the cavern, a sort of way to guarantee the support of the cavern ceiling. However, I noticed they were actually a sort of stepping-stone bridge.

The noise that I had heard was Malik gracefully jumping form pillar to pillar, for a cat with only three legs he was moving with ease, Farley was following close behind him.

"Farley!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping she would hear me. She didn't. Instead, she kept jumping from pillar to pillar behind Malik, seemingly oblivious to my presence below her.

_She thinks she's Lara Croft,_ I thought to myself, _What is she doing? Where does she think she's going?_

"Farley!_" _I called again, even louder. Again, she did not turn her head. I sighed and leapt to my feet, cupping my hands around my mouth, "_FARLEY!"_

She disappeared through a nook in the wall at the end of the pillar-bridge. I could just barely make out the far-away hum of her headphones. Of course she hadn't heard me; she had her music turned up too loud.

"I have got to get to her…" I muttered to myself, scanning the wall for a tunnel or a door. I spotted a tunnel behind one of the goddess statues. Its mouth was carved into the shapes of animals which were veiled in twisted vines freckled with strange, tiny pink flowers.

Slowly, I climbed to my feet, hearing my body pop with the movement, like I had not moved in ages. How long had I been out? Nothing felt broken, however, and I slowly made my way along the bank toward the tunnel.

It was lit by the same kind of crystals that lit the underground lake, only they were smaller and had been molded into the walls and ceiling, and it was more narrow than I had expected. With each step I took, the more narrow it seemed to get until I was practically walking sideways. Lucky for me, the tunnel was not very long, and it quickly opened up into a large, well lit chamber.

The first thing I saw was the glinting of dim light off of many gold coins scattered across the floor that spread from large piles that could easily had been taller than myself. Along the walls, there were long, marble tables decorated with strange artifacts. One in particular caught my eye; it was a large dragon carved from black marble. Its glaring eyes were actually two bright red rubies, and a tiny plume of smoke coiled out into the air from its open mouth. Between its claws, it held a glass orb. I didn't need to touch it in order to know it was made from glass. I had touched it a long, long time ago…

My mind flashed before I could have the moment to realize what was going on.

_In the distance, I could see the large, open archway of the Treasury at the end of a long corridor. Almost there, almost there. The night guards were approaching their positions as the day guards left to return to their quarters. The exchange would take a little time, and it would be the perfect time for me to get in and out unnoticed. At least, I hoped it would take a little time. If I was caught outside of the living quarters, I would be in deepest trouble, no doubt I would receive the harshest beating of my life. _

_I tip-toed through the narrow corridor along the shadows as quietly as possible, watching as the guards changed their positions. They exchanged a few words as the day guards handed their scythes to the night guards and saluted them in farewell. During the exchanged, I slipped safely inside and looked around._

_I needed to use the Scrying Orb. We rarely ever used it, as it did not tell us anything that alchemy or divination could not tell us already, but we used it for a few things, some of which those of lower ranks in the Sisterhood were forbidden from knowing. I was going to it for one of those things: I needed to know whether I was carrying a son, or a daughter._

_If it was a daughter, I would have no problem. Daughters were welcomed with open arms and smiling faces, here. They were considered a great blessing. But if I were carrying a son… _

_My stomach churned sickeningly at the though. Most sons, with the exception of a very few, were executed immediately. A disgrace, sons were. All they did was grow into men; men who looted, stole, killed, men who lived as womanisers and pimps. _

_Very few male babies were spared, as we needed them for reproduction, but it was highly doubtful that my child, should it be a boy, would be one of the exceptions._

_From what I had seen in the past, all I had to do is touch the Scrying Orb, and it would tell me what I needed to know. I saw it in the farthest corner of the Treasury, nestled on a velvet blanket that had been thrown haphazardly onto a podium. I walked over to it, and gently laid my palm against it. It felt smooth and flawless under my touch._

_At first, nothing happened. And then suddenly, a murky smoke began churning inside of it. It churned and churned, before settling on an angry red colour. The orb burned beneath my hand, and I quickly yanked my hand back._

_Male. There was nothing else that the Scrying Orb's hateful burning could have meant._

_I felt as though the world had crumbled around me. I was having a son, and I was more than likely going to lose him, to lose this little life inside of me. I bit down hard on my lip, trying desperately to not burst into tears. I had a son, and I was not even going to see him smile!_

_Perhaps I could arrange to leave him with someone. I could hide the growing child inside me, and then leave the city on a "mission" and have him in Damascus. Perhaps I could leave him with..._

_There was a scuffling noise behind me, and I turned around to see Hanan stepping out of the shadows. She was watching me intently, almost lazily_

"_What are you doing, Seri? With the Scrying Orb, no less?"_

_I turned to face her, silently thanking God that she was alone. I needed to tell someone, and she was the one person I could trust completely. I had more trust in her than in anyone else. I cleared my throat. She stepped closer, one of her brows arched._

"_What do you need the Scrying Orb for?" she asked._

The orb felt impossibly smooth beneath my fingers. I shook my head, blinking away Hanan's maniacal little face. Seri's memories were becoming more commonplace, each one more detailed than the last. _What are you trying to tell me, Seri? _I wondered.

There was a rustling sound, the sound of stone grinding against stone, from the far corner of the room. A door had opened, a dim light flickering in the new corridor. There were very clean, crisp stairs carved into the stone floor leading up.

_You want me to go that way?_

I watched the staircase carefully, half-expecting that demon dog to come charging down. When nothing happened after a few seconds, I sighed and squared my shoulders.

_Here goes nothing._


	9. Butter Knives And Ninja Stars?

The stairs were never-ending. I felt like I had been climbing them for hours, and my legs and feet were beginning to hurt. I somehow managed to not break any bones in my fall off the bridge, which was astonishing. I couldn't figure out how I had survived the fall unscathed as I had, and wasn't sure if it was due to alchemy, or because I simply managed to land in the deepest part of the river.

Though, I was pretty sure I still would have come out really hurt if I had done the latter, so I figured it was safe to assume it was some kind of alchemy.

I was also worried about Alex. I hoped he was all right.

The staircase took me to a very strange room full of mirrors, each one adorned in gold. Some were hung on the marble walls, and others were standing upright on gold stands. But none of them returned my reflection. Instead, they reflected what looked like different parts of the city. Most of the reflections were just black, either because there was no light, or because those parts of the city had collapsed. A couple of the mirrors displayed the reflections of the rooms that I had explored with Alex and Altaïr before I fell.

The room was deathly silent—until I passed closely by a mirror. Then it was like the mirror was reflecting _sounds_, too. Once, I heard Alex's laugh and got really excited, half-expecting to see him come bounding through the door I had come through with Altaïr on his heels. However, it was when I noticed his reflection in one of the mirrors that I realized I had only been hearing things.

I stepped closer to the mirror from which I heard Alex's giggling and peered through, pressing my fingertips against the glass. I could see Altaïr and Alex as they walked through a hallway littered with statues. Alex was perched on Altaïr's shoulders. I smiled to myself. Alex loved being carried up high.

"At least I know you're safe," I told the reflection, brushing my hands on my jeans.

There was a loud crash behind me, and I turned around to catch a glimpse of blond hair from inside another mirror.

"Farley?" I asked no one in particular. I ran toward the mirror and nearly pressed my face against it, searching for her reflection. She was there; I knew she was there. That had been her hair I had seen. There was a scuffling sound to my right, and I turned to catch sight her struggling against a figure dressed in dark clothing. It took me a moment to realize who it was.

"Paul…?"

How in the hell did he know we were here? Better yet, how in the hell did he know how to get here?

"Farley! Oh God! _Farley!_"

Farley was cursing colourfully as Paul yanked her by the hair before flinging her against one of the walls. I heard her hit the wall with a sickening thud, and felt the bile begin to rise in my throat. I felt so helpless. My sister was caught in the grips of an egotistical maniac, and I had no way of knowing how to get to her.

He remained bent down next to her, calmly resisting her struggles as she wriggled in his grip. To my horror, I saw him place something against her head.

A gun?

Since when had he owned one of those? I never remembered him having _a gun_

"Farley! Oh my God! Oh my God, no!"

I heard the gun click, but did not hear it fire. My guess was that the gun wasn't loaded, but I knew that it would not remain unloaded for much longer. My legs felt like jelly, and I had to crouch down to keep from falling over. My sister had just had a gun pointed to her head, and I didn't know how to get to her in order to help her. I took a deep breath to try and regain my composer. The best thing I could do was attempt to retrace my footsteps and hope they would lead me back.

I could Paul talking in whispers, but couldn't hear what he was saying. Before I could stand to walk back through the room, I heard a loud _thunk! _and nearly screamed when I saw Malik jump down from the top the mirror and land directly in front of me.

When I looked back into the mirror, I found it empty.

"No, no, no!" I clutched the mirror, one hand on either side, and peered in, "Where'd you go? No!"

Malik let out a tiny _meow_, and I looked over at him. He was still staring at me with his creepy aqua-blue eyes. His tail twitched impatiently behind him.

"What on earth is Paul doing here?" I asked him, knowing he wouldn't talk back, "Was I just seeing things? Did that really happen?"

The expression on Malik's face seemed to read, '_How the hell should I know?_'

I glanced over at the mirror that I had seen Altaïr and Alex in. They were gone from that mirror, but they were in another one two mirrors over. Altaïr had put Alex down, and they were fiddling with what looked like a shattered statue. I could just barely make out Alex's laughter as Altaïr had told him a joke. I looked back over at Malik.

"Farley said that she thought you might have been here before. Can you show me where I need to go?"

Malik's expression shifted, '_Well certainly, now that you_'_ve asked nicely._'

Or, at least, that was what his expression had read.

He took off in the direction of another staircase, which wound upwards.

I pried one of the glowing crystal out of the wall and held it out in front of me as a kind of torch and took off after him, trying to stay as close to him as I could, but it was difficult. It's amazing how fast a three-legged cat could run. Malik led me into a domed chamber. There were red crystals hanging from the ceiling, and there were strange devices laid out on marble tables. Ancient bones splintered under my feet with each step I took.

_Bones, so many bones…_

There was a pool cut into the floor in the centre of the room. A thick, dark liquid churned inside; it looked like blood mixed with sand, among other things.

"_That's one of the most horrid jobs I've ever had to do," _

_Hanan cackled to herself lightly as she flipped her hair and looked at me._

_She had drawn two circles around her eyes in blood part-way through the ritual, as it was part of the ritual to do so. She had managed to draw a single line of blood on my left cheek but I had refused to let her draw anything else. I had made the mistake of asking her what happend in the Crimson Chamber and I had gotten my answer. Healthy or not, if the Matriarch decided they were unfit, all baby boys, were to be killed. _

_And Hanan had been the one selected to do it._

_Hanan had been ecstatic to serve the Matriarch. She boasted about her job to anyone that would listen, as though it were the same as boasting about raising the biggest cattle in the fields. Usually I pretended to be jealous of her duty. But secretly, I was glad I had never been picked to do it. _

_Hanan was such a fool sometimes, even if she was my sister._

"_You asked, and I showed you," Hanan said simply, walking out of my room. She was headed back to the Crimson Chamber to mix the fresh blood into the pit. It was a necessary reagent to keep the crystals glowing. _

_Alchemy is such a strange art._

_I sat down on my bed, wiping my cheek with a wet scrap of linen to rid my skin of the blood. No matter how hard I wiped at my cheek, I still felt dirty. I had not killed any of the bawling infants that had been left for Hanan, only watched. But watching had been enough. _

_So I decided to send Leikan, my white desert cat, to Altaïr with a note telling him that I wanted to meet him tonight at the Watcher's Rock._

_I wanted out. _

Seri's memories left me more aware of my surroundings in the Crimson Chamber than I was ever prepared to be. The smell of dried blood and rot made my stomach lurch violently, and I leaned against the table closest to me and choked, vomiting onto the floor.

My body quivered horribly, and as soon as I had finished throwing up, I heard the sound of shattering glass. I looked up to see Malik standing over a broken jar. When he noticed me looking at him, he took off through a door that led to a winding spiral staircase.

Alchemy, blood rituals, human sacrifice… the Sisterhood had meddled in so many crafts. This was all a part of Seri's life. But it was all so wrong; how could she have been a part of it?

_I wanted out. I wanted out. I wanted out. _

The words repeated in my mind over and over again as I followed Malik. He was trotting down a crystal-lit corridor. I stopped following him when I came upon a particularly bright room. Curiosity got the better of me as I walked in, pushing past the old silk that hung lazily in the door frame.

The room was mostly white, adorned with elegantly-carved pillars shaped like snakes. The crystals that kept the room lit were so bright that it made the room look bathed in daylight. There were several small alcoves carved into the wall, each housing a single statue of a god or goddess. The statues, once beautiful and now worn by time, were peering back at me through tattered, moth-eaten drapes that had once covered the alcoves, but were now hanging in shambles.

I could smell the very faint scent of roses and incense. An incense-burner hung listlessly from the ceiling. Beneath it I noticed several angry-looking black burn marks on the floor. There were two dishes sitting on one of the tables along the walls, both carved into the shape of coiled serpents. One of the dishes was filled with little black explosive pellets. The one next to it was empty. I picked the dish up, and ran my fingertips over it. Every scale on the snake looked and felt frightfully real. Its eyes, which were made from tiny gems, were glaring angrily at me.

_This all seems so familiar, _I thought as I looked round again. The room reminded me of a hospital room. All white with hardly any thing to clutter it. The realization dawned on me, "It's a delivery room."

I put the bowl I had been holding down. Malik stalked into the room, his black fur a harsh interruption in all the white. I wondered how far he had gone before he realized I wasn't following him.

I sighed at him and followed him out of the room and down the hallway, looking into each room we passed. It was easy to see that every room had a different purpose.

We entered into a room with a fountain in the centre. The fountain had dried up long ago. There were chalices, not unlike the one Dad had found, on different tables surrounding the fountain. All had different shapes to them: birds, crocodiles, lions, practically any animal that had a related god or goddess. I noticed, out of all the visible ones, that the Jackal was missing. It must have been the one that my father had found.

Malik led me into a larger corridor with separate corridors branching off it. The smaller corridors were lined with animal statues. Jackal statues lined one corridor while cow statues lined another. I wondered where they all branched off to.

_I carried the bowl of sweet white wine with care from the Fountain of Chaste. It was this week's offering to Hathor, and to spill a drop would be a disaster. As the head priestess, this was an important duty. Holding my head high I walked past the glittering statues, I hated walking by them. It always felt like they were watching me, as though judging me for things only they knew of. After the offering was given, I had planned to ask a favour from the goddess. I needed her help, and the goddess always listened to what I had to ask. _

_Whether she would help or not was entirely up to her._

Stopping at the mouth of the corridor lined with cow statues I peered down it. At the end of the corridor was a very tall statue of the goddess Hathor and I could see the golden bowl that Seri had been carrying in the memory resting in the statue's arms. Directly in front of it was a dusty, cobwebby cow's skeleton. It must have been the sacred cow for the temple. I didn't think it was purposely killed. So it most likely starved. _Poor thing..._ I thought to myself as I turned away from it, and looked at Malik, who was staring intensely down a corridor lined with cat statues.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked, picking him up. Much to my surprise, he hissed and swiped at my face, causing me to drop him.

A second later I heard a scream that sounded like Farley. it seemed Malik had heard it, too, as he stopped trying to attack me and took off running towards the far end of the corridor.

"Farley!" I called, running in the direction of the scream. We were soon running through a crystal-lit passage which sloped at an upwards angle and occasionally I would stumble due to the uneven ground. I then heard someone shout as I stopped at the top of the slope and peered into the shadows of another corridor.

It had been Alex's voice.

"Mom!" Alex shouted again, I noticed them coming towards me from another corridor. Alex was on Altaïr's back and I could see Altaïr wince as Alex had shouted in his ear. I also noticed his hood was down, Alex must have pulled it off the assassins head at some point. I was so happy to see them.

"Alex!" I took off towards them while Altaïr put Alex down, and a moment later my son came barrelling towards me. Scooping him up I sighed in relief, "Oh my God, Alex, I'm so glad you're okay!" I cradled Alex to me as I noticed Altaïr put his hood up again and turn his attention to the floor, as though trying to disconnect himself from us.

Ignoring the assassin for the time being I planted kisses all over Alex's face and continued to tell him how relieved I was that he had not been harmed.

"Mo-om! I'm _fine_," Alex sounded agitated, as though I was embarrassing him in front of Altaïr. But right then I didn't care. I was too relieved to care. I had decided that if the mirrors hadn't been playing mind-tricks on me, then Paul really was here and I was afraid he may have found Alex.

All of us froze when another scream drifted down the corridor. Alex clutched me, and I rubbed small circles onto his back to calm him.

"Farley" I said quietly, casting a glance at Altaïr as if to ask him if he had heard it. He nodded solemnly, and motioned down a particularly dim corridor. It was a very short corridor with large doors at the very end. For a moment, I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland, as the doors did not seem proportionate to the hallway, but it most likely got wider with a higher ceiling close to the doors.

As we approached, I noticed that the doors had swirling spirit animals craved into them. running my fingers over the doors I looked for a way inside. Nothing.

Frustrated, I kicked at the door. My sister was in there, and I couldn't get to her, I felt so useless in those few moments. with a sight I cast a glance at the cat who was among us, Malik looked at a loss, too. He was laying dejectedly before the door, his tail twitching in frustration.

a few moments went past before an idea struck me, I reached into the rucksack that I still had on my back and pulled out the key that the old woman in the craft shop had given me a few weeks ago. It didn't fit anywhere.

"Damn," I cursed, then quickly glanced at Alex to see if he had heard me. He didn't look like he had. Instead, he was staring intently at the door, his brow knit together in concentration. For some reason, though they were of absolutely no relation, I thought he looked like Altaïr when he was brooding.

"It's right there," he said matter-of-factly. His voice cut through the thick silence, and before I could say anything, he reached out and pressed a button on the wall. The large doors began sliding open, and I quickly made Alex stand behind me while put the key back in my pocket.

The room looked just like it had in my dreams: the sandy floor and the walls all looked the same, just with a slightly more aged look. as the doors swept open I watched as dust glittered in the golden torchlight.

"Rio!" I heard my sister shout, snapping me out of my temporary daze. She was tied up against one of the pillars and the right side of her face was cut, "I'm sorry! He made me lead him here! He wanted to find you! I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. I heard a laugh, and looked at the centre of the room where a man stood

Paul…

"Your father put up quite the fight… those little explosives he found pack quite a punch," Paul said casually as he threw my fathers cracked glasses on the floor.

"You killed him," I murmured, looking at them as they kicked up a small cloud of dust. From behind me, I could hear Altaïr whispering reassuringly to Alex.

"No," Paul grinned, "I just put him out of commission for a while. He should wake up in the hospital."

"You bas...bogeyman!" I found it harder to curse in front of my son this time, though I was unsure why. It wasn't like cursing was the worst thing that Alex had seen me do.

Paul disregarded me and knelt down, beckoning Alex over, "Come here Alex, I have something for you." He began reaching into his coat pocket.

I could hear Altaïr whispering frantically behind me, but still couldn't understand what he was saying. It sounded like he was telling Alex to stay where he was.

"Leave him alone, Paul," I growled. Alex seemed to ignore Altaïr's protests and began walking toward Paul, "Alex, get back here!"

I made to move towards my son, but Altaïr was faster. He swooped down and picked Alex up, holding the boy still in a protective embrace.

"Alexander stays with us," Altaïr said simply, his voice still toneless and nonchalant, "You are not his father, any more."

_Any more?_

"Who's this clown?" Paul cackled, pulling his hand out from his coat pocket. Between his fingers was the gun. He aimed it at Farley, who squeaked in surprise. I noticed Altaïr frown in confusion at Paul's reaction. Did he not know what a gun was?

Of course he didn't… his time came _before _guns.

But when I looked closer, I noticed he wasn't looking at the gun, but rather at Malik, who was trying to claw and bite the rope tied round Farley, the cat seemed to be growing more agitated with each passing second.

"Rio," Altaïr said. The tone in his voice had changed. Worry? I couldn't tell. With Altaïr, it was hard to tell these things. But despite the strange tone in his voice, I couldn't help but feel my body tingle at the sound of my name on his lips.

_Not a time for romancing, Rio, _I scolded myself, _He's _dead, _remember? _

I looked at him. Despite the serenity in his voice, his face was fierce, angry. I didn't need to ask him what he wanted. I just knew. I took Alex from him, held him close. Altaïr reached down and touched each of his wrists and the throwing knives along his middle. I could hear his armor clinking delicately as he did so.

Paul cackled again, "Butter knives and ninja stars?" he mocked, "This is the twenty-first century, Clown. See this baby?" The gun clicked as he began to arm it. I clutched Alex tighter and turned him away, unsure of what to do. "This is how we do it around here." He aimed the gun at Farley and looked back at me, "All right, Rio. I'm going to make a deal with you. Give me Alex, and your sister goes free."

"_What? _Why do you want Alex? You barely wanted anything to do with him when he was a baby!"

"I need him to pay off a debt. Remember when I bought you the car as a present? I used Alex to pay for it," Paul sneered at me. My mouth fell open.

"You _what?!_" I was glad that I had Alex to occupy my arms, otherwise I wasn't sure if I would have made the decision to stay where I was. I could feel Alex shaking in my arms, and heard him sniffle into my neck. "You _sold _our _son?! How could you!"_

"Correction: he's _my _son. You told me the day you found out you were pregnant that you didn't want him, and that I could have him. He is _mine_!"

Alex lifted his head from my neck and looked up at me with large, round eyes. I could even feel Altaïr's eyes hover over me, covering me with a blanket of shame. I looked down at Alex, feeling my heart break into a thousand tiny pieces. That day… had come at the worst time of my life. Knowing I was going to have a child felt like it was going to bound me to the monster holding a gun to my sister's head for the rest of my life. I wasn't prepared to be a mother, not at all. But it had been my own mother who convinced me that I was ready She made me see how wonderful having my son would be.

What felt like was the worst possible thing to happen to me ended up becoming the best possible thing.

"Time's up," Paul cackled again. I saw his arm tense as he pulled the trigger.

I heard the gun go off, and I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't tell if Farley had screamed, but I had heard Alex shout. The smell of gunpowder filled my nose, and I gulped heavily before peeking over at my sister. Malik had managed to bite through most of her ropes and she was quickly wriggling free.

Then I looked in the direction of Altaïr, who was pressing Paul tightly against a pillar, dark blood pooling the floor beneath them. The gun was laying placidly on the ground, still smoking at the end. Altaïr had disarmed him, and when he pushed him up against the pillar, he dropped the gun, making it go off when it hit the floor. I could tell that the blood was Paul's; he had been shot in the leg.

Alex was sobbing uncontrollably into my neck. I cradled him, rocked him, and watched Paul's shocked expression as Altaïr whirled him around and pressed him face-first against the pillar, locking his arms behind his back like some kind of police officer cuffing a cat burglar. I didn't know what he was doing until I noticed him rip a strip of linen from his robes and made to tie Paul's hands.

_"A debitum cunctator can exsisto restituo ut quicumque est lost reverto." _

I had heard that phrase before, it echoed off the walls of the room. But this time, it wasn't just me who heard it. Farley quickly freed herself, and scooped Malik up. She was casting glances around the room as she ran toward me, panic clear in her eyes. Alex's cries had died down, and he, too, was looking around trying to find the source of the chanting voices. Altaïr and Paul's struggling was quickly forgotten, and both came to a halt as they looked around.

That strange cackle filled the room, and I saw Altaïr quickly drop all attempts at tying Paul's hands together as he leapt away from Paul, the assassin nearly collided into a table covered in beautifully-decorated ceramic jars. Paul yelped and dove for the gun, looking terrified. A shadow had appeared on the wall above doors on the other side of the room, and from it stepped the horrid demon hound we had encountered earlier.

It was panting heavily, like a dog in the middle of summer that had been running for far to long.

We watched as it changed shape and formed into the girl with the jackal mask. She was laughing maniacally at Paul. Her fingers were sharp, almost as if she had grown claws. She lifted her helm from her face, revealing two blood-red rings drawn round her eyes.

_Hanan._

Paul shook violently as he reloaded his gun and aimed it right for the girl's chest. Hanan just smirked and danced out of the bullet's path as he took a shot at her. The bang of the gun echoed loudly through the room, making my ears ring. I covered Alex's ears with my hands and leaned next to him.

"Close your eyes, sweetheart," I told him, trying to stay calm. I glanced over at Farley. Malik was balanced on her shoulder.

"Consider my debt repaid," Hanan sang, holding her hands out, fingers spread. she twirled catching Paul in the stomach with one hand while the other pulled a curved sickle like blade from a holder on her back, the copper metal glimmering in the rooms light.

Whirling Alex around Itucked his head into my chest, keeping my hands over his ears. Paul screamed in pain and I turned away. I could heard the sickle embed its self in one of Pauls sides, the sound of tearing flesh filling the air as she pulled it out with a twist. her other hand was still in his stomach and she slowly pulled it from him, something in her hand moving. His heart.

I wished I could cover my ears and rid my memory of the sounds that Paul had been emitting, but knew I needed to keep my hands over Alex's. It was only a moment later that his screams died to nothing but gurgles, and then silence. I looked up to see him slump and then fall over dead in his own blood.

"My debt is now repaid. Now, it is your turn," Hanan giggled as she looked over at Farley and Malik, "And Cat… look after them!" She twirled on her toes as her body erupted in sand as black as obsidian, and disappeared into the floor and shadows that were around. Her copper sickle clattered to the floor, pointing toward the doors Hanan had appeared above before the blade slipped back into shadows, much like she had done.

"Mom?"

I looked down into Alex's eyes when he spoke to me. My hands were still covering his ears, but he was able to look up at me. I cupped his chin in my hands after putting him down on the floor.

"It's over, Baby," I tried to encourage a smile out of him by smiling at him first, but he just kept looking at me, "Alex?"

"Do you really hate me?"

"What?" I stroked his cheek, "Why would you ask that?"

"Bogeyman said you don't want me any more."

"Oh, Honey…" I pulled him into a hug, "Of course I don't hate you. Of course I want you. I love you, you're my boy…"

From the corner of my eye I saw Farley bend over to put Malik on the floor. The cat trotted over to the lump of Paul that was laying on the floor, as if to examine to be sure that Paul was really dead. Then, I saw Altaïr do the same. He bent over next to the body and gingerly reached out to touch him. After a moment, he gave a curt nod toward the cat. It was as if they were talking, only they weren't saying any words.

_How odd..._

The sound of an unlocking door echoed through the room, hushing everyone into silence. A small door in the corner of the room had opened, and I could just make out the dim, glowing light from behind it. Hanan's words echoed through my head.

_'My debt is now repaid. Now, it is your turn.'_

I stroked Alex's cheek again, and planted a kiss on his forehead, "I'll tell you what. Why not you stay here with Aunt Farley while I go and do something really quick. And when I'm done, we'll talk about it all you want."

He sniffled, looking up at me with a strange, glassy look. I just smiled at him, hoping to make him feel better, and ushered him toward Farley.

"Look after Alex for me, I've something I need to do. Make sure he doesn't look at…" I gestured over to Paul who had been moved to one side of the room. Farley nodded and sat down against a wall, taking some shiny thing from her pocket in attempt to capture Alex's attention.

I then took the key out of my pocket and headed to the opened door. It led to a very tiny, well-lit corridor, at the end of which was a elegantly made door. There were birds carved into this one, much unlike any of the other doors I had seen in Narmein. At the centre of the door, two birds came together at the beak. Between them was a key hole. Instinctively, I knew that the key the psychic had given me so long ago was the one that belonged. I slid the key inside and turned it easily. Without any effort, the doors slid open on their ancient hinges, and pulled back to allow me inside.

This room was also lit with crystals, enough crystals that it almost hurt my eyes to look around. There were many treasures stacked up along the walls, and there were paintings of strange creatures on the walls. In the very centre of the room was a clear-blue coffin that looked like it had been carved out of a gigantic gemstone. On one side of the room stood a strange, skeletal creature. There were large gems set into the eye sockets. Between its hands, it held the Matriarch's familiar bone staff.

Beside me there was a table, and the only thing on it was a wooden box. I picked it up and opened it, revealing a number of tiny hand-carved metallic animals.

"Avalar," I whispered, "This is where you came from." remembering the toy eagle that Alex had grown rather attached to.

I thought about putting the box back, but something told me to keep it with me, and that Alex would want them. Did Seri want me to take them? After a moment, I slipped the box into my bag. I tip-toed to the centre of the room and peeked inside, feeling my breath catch painfully.

The person inside was a woman, and looked so much like me that I thought I had looked into a mirror. It was confusing at first. This person just looked like she was sleeping, like she hadn't aged. But then I remembered all of the arts that the Sisterhood had dabbled in. It would come to no surprise that they probably found some way of preserving a body. I couldn't help but think that there was some kind of magic going on, even just a little.

But what was weirdest of all was that no matter how much the woman in the coffin looked like me, she also _didn_'_t. _I felt she looked prettier than myself. Much prettier.

"Seri," I whispered to the air as I looked at her through the crystal, "Altaïr is right. You certainly are beautiful."

I leaned over to touch the crystal over her face, when the world suddenly lurched. I leaned against the coffin and took a deep breath, closing my eyes.

_In front of me was in a desert of white sand. A warm wind passed by me, and I could smell the scent of sweet flowers. Lilacs. A young woman wearing a white linen dress was dancing near a patch of desert roses. this wasn't a memory being shown, it was more clear, something about the atmosphere made the hairs on my arms stand on end._

"_Seri?" _

_the woman stopped her dancing and looked at me, nodding in response.._

"_Rio," she said, smiling as she walked over to me. Her voice was much sweeter than I remembered it being in her memories. It was calming, soothing, held a somewhat musical tone to it and I couldn't help but smile back at her, "I have something to give you" she said as she reached in to her pocket and took out a small bottle on a string. _

"_What is it?" I asked._

_"it is something that may help, I cant tell you what it is but think of it as a test, its up to you if you use it or not...and you will know exactly when..."_

_She turned away from me with a somewhat sad smile and then vanished like a heat haze mirage._

The world around me then began to fade, and I felt myself falling. Suddenly I was laying on the floor beside the crystal coffin and was still holding the little vial tightly between my fingers. Seri said it may help… but with what? I didn't understand.

A hollow _clunk_ then echoed through the room, and I noticed the Matriarch's bone staff that the skeletal creature had been holding had fallen to the floor beside me. I was tempted to hold it, but thought better of it. There was something off-setting about it, something evil. Perhaps it was because it had been made out of carved bone, and I wasn't sure _whose _bone.

Then the idea struck me.

The bone staff. It had been used to 'Trap' Altair, whatever that meant, and break Seri. Perhaps destroying it would be what set them free? For me to help them, the staff had to be broken.

Using the toe of my shoe, I managed to get one end of the staff under my foot. Although I hadn't wanted to touch it, I knew I had to in order to break it. So I took hold of the other end of the staff in my hand, and for a fleeting moment before quickly bringing my spare foot down on it what felt like a buzz of energy washed over me. I watched as the staff splintered and snapped, cracking in half. There was a sudden flash of white, and a gust of wind raced past me in a deafening roar. When the roaring sound had died down, there was just silence. I could hear voices from the next room.

And suddenly Farley was screaming.

"Rio!"

I leapt to my feet and ran toward the doors, dropping the remnants of the staff to the floor with a clatter.

Something was terribly wrong… I felt that I had made a grave mistake.


	10. An Implosive Ending

"Farley what's wrong!" I shouted while charging into the main room and looked over at my sister. She was holding Alex, who was now crying and struggling in her grasp as he tried to get free.

"Something's wrong with him," Farley whimpered.

"Something's wrong with who?" I asked, frowning. Both she and Alex looked fine, just scared. She was still sitting against a wall, rocking Alex in her lap and he was crying hysterically. Farley then pointed to the far corner of the room.

"Something's wrong with _him_."

I looked in the direction she was pointing, and had to bring a hand to my mouth to stifle a gasp.

Altaïr was leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the room, although it appeared that he was having trouble staying on his feet, his boots scraping loudly against the stone floor as he attempted to remain standing. He quickly gave up his attempt and slunk to the ground, gasping for air. His right arm was wrapped tightly around his middle, his hand clutching his left arm, which looked dislocated and limp. Blood was swiftly pooling on the floor around him, glistening hotly in the dim light.

"Altaïr?"

I had thought that, when I broke the Matriarch's bone staff, that Altair would have just vanished into shadow, like Hanan had. it was painfully obvious to me that, I had wrong. Instead, I had left him to experience a pain greater than I could have ever imagined in my entire life, it was clear by the stiffness in his body. I quickly rushed toward him and knelt beside him.

"Why didn't you vanish, like Hanan?" I asked, more to myself than to him. I was confused. "You're free... isn't that what you want?"

I could hear him grit his teeth as he tried desperately to stifle a moan. I could barely see his face scrunched in pain beneath the hood pulled low over his face. He was trying to hide his pain, I was sure of it.

"I cant leave until…" he managed, his head falling back against the wall with a soft thud. Most of his hood flopped back against the wall, uncovering his young face. He let out a ragged breath, "Is this death? But how could it… _hurt… _so much?"

_Do you know what it_'_s like to die?_

The words spun, danced in my head. He had asked me that very question in the car as we drove to the Wal-Mart to pick up some sunscreen, and again when we were on the airplane. At the time, I had scoffed at the question. Of course I had no clue what it was like to die. _He _was the ghost, after all.

Or was he?

But that just _couldn_'_t_ be possible, could it? If he hadn't died, that would make him almost a thousand years old…

_Do you know what it_'_s like to die?_

It made sense, though, given the Sisterhood's history with alchemy and magic. For all we knew, they could have easily done it, could have easily suspended him outside of our time. He was a drifter, a wanderer, neither dead or alive.

He was Trapped.

_Healthy or not, if the Matriarch decided they were unfit, all baby boys, were to be killed._

Seri had been pregnant prior to her death, and she had not kept it a secret from me that Altaïr had been her lover. What better way for the Matriarch to punish a heretic than to allow him to outlive the ones he loved?

_You were never dead,_ I thought, _you were simply… _there…

Altaïr groaned softly and pressed his good hand against the open wound in his side in order to attempt to stop the bleeding. the noise and movement pulling me from my thoughts, and I reached over, gingerly lifting his head from the wall and pushing his hood the rest of the way down to his shoulders. His hair was soft between my fingers. Baby-fine. He felt unbearably hot against my touch, like someone who had run a 10-mile marathon non-stop in the desert during the middle of the day.

_Infection._

He was dying.

"So...This is what it feels like to die..." His eyes opened, strange and glassy. I never really had the chance to look at them properly, as he had always kept them covered, or had always refused to meet my gaze. But looking at them now, I couldn't swallow the feeling of my heart break into a thousand tiny pieces. They were round and fierce, even as their flames were flickering. But the fierceness in his gaze was contradictory, as his eyes were the lightest, most sincere shade of honey-brown than I had ever seen. He certainly must have been more beautiful in his time – his real time – than I could have ever imagined.

"Avalar!" Alex choked out through a wave of tears as he broke free from Farley's gasp and ran over to us. He plopped down helplessly on the ground on the other side of Altaïr, looking unsure of what to do, "Mom, what's wrong with him?"

"He's..." I trailed off, unable to decide how to answer his question. My son was five years old, and I had yet to explain the facts of life and death to him. To explain it to him now seemed an impossibility. How was I supposed to make a five-year-old understand that sort of finality?

I felt Altaïr's hand on mine while I looked at Alex. It felt cool to the touch, despite the rest of him feeling warm.

_The first thing the body does is restrict blood flow to the extremities as a way to preserve major organs. I thought with a lost sigh, I watched allot of medical related programs on the television back home._

"Mom, can't you help him? Like that time I scraped my knee on the bike?"

I couldn't hold back the chuckle in my throat. Alex had decided to ride his bicycle in the yard while I was taking a nap once. A tiny rock from the driveway had jammed one of his tires and sent him flying into the side walk. His knee, thought it hadn't been cut deeply, bled profusely for a long while. At the time he had been hysterical, telling me he thought he was going to bleed to death. Such an innocent boo-boo now made this all look like an atrocity.

So I decided not to answer him, as I had noticed Farley approaching us out of the corner of my eye. She crouched beside Alex and then scooped him up, "Come on, Alex," she whispered.

"NO!" He screamed violently, kicking in protest. "I want to stay and help Avalar! I WANT TO STAY AND HELP AVALAR!" Farley calmly ignored him and carried him away. I wasn't sure where she had taken him to, only that his screams died down very quickly. I squeezed Altaïr's hand, brushing my thumb against his knuckles.

"Will he… be all right?" Altaïr managed weakly, "He gets… into so much… trouble…"

I hushed his forced attempts to speak by putting a finger to his lips. They were warm and soft to the touch. then when I brought my hand back, I noticed I was still clutching the little vial that Seri had given me in my hand.

_'It is something that may help.'_

Seri's words danced and twirled in my head. She had said it was something that could help. May help. Or may not. But what was there to lose? He was already dying. I weighed the small bottle in my hand. _'it is something that may help, think of it as a test, its up to you if you use it or not..'_

I was willing to try anything, hoping perhaps for a miracle.

"Seri said this will help," I said, grunting as I pried the bottle open and held its mouth to Altaïr's lips. He turned away from the bottle, using his good hand to push it away.

"No. This isn't my world any more. There isn't anything for me here."

I felt a twinge of anger race up my spine, and I clutched the bottle between my fingers. _There isn't anything here for him? How can he say that? What about Alex?_

"Seri told me…"

"Rio…" he panted, "Seri…"

"No, Altaïr. You're wrong. _Alex _is here for you. That should mean _something._"

I took his chin in one of my hands and forced his head back, tipping a portion of the liquid inside the bottle into his mouth. It was much like forcing Alex to take cough syrup when he was sick. A dribble of the strange copper toned liquid spilled down his chin, and I brushed it away with my finger. Altaïr grimaced and turned his head, spitting it to the ground.

"_Altaïr_," I growled, "Stop that."

What was I doing? He _wanted _this. He _wanted _to die. How did I even know if this was going to let him live? For all I knew, it could just ease all the pain to make the transition into death more comfortable.

Either way, Seri had given it to me. She seemed to have had wanted me to use the potion in the vial, whatever it was.

"Alexander…" Altaïr wheezed, coughing. He looked up at me, his eyes hazy with delirium. Without thinking, I put the bottle to my lips and tipped back a small mouthful. The liquid inside was strangely sweet, delicious. Altaïr was going to drink it, whether he wanted to or not. I had seen this on television, and it worked for the actors; hesitating for a moment before I took his face in my hands and kissed him, forcing the liquid into his mouth. His lips were warm and dry, almost chapped, but they were full and unexpectedly gentle. I heard him swallow the mouthful of the potion, but his lips continued to ripple against mine. I hadn't at all expected him to kiss back. Either way, I hadn't wanted the kiss to end. He roughly broke free from me as he fell back against the wall, coughing.

At least I knew he had drank it.

"Seri..." He retched, grimacing, and released my hand. His glassy stare washed over me. He must have thought I was her. I flinched as he placed his cold hand on my face, "Seri don't cry." His thumb brushed at a tear that I hadn't realized was making its way down my face.

"_Seri..." He whispered, struggling against his constraints._

_He was chained by his wrists to a wall in a holding cell near the Grand Hall. It had been difficult to sneak in without being caught, but I had managed. He suddenly became blurry behind a wall of tears._

"_Oh, Altaïr, what have they done to you?" I whimpered._

"_Seri don't cry," He said as I looked away from him._

_This was all my fault. _

"_I'm… I_'_m sorry… I_'_m so sorry…" _

_I couldn_'_t tell him that they weren_'_t going to kill him. _

_They were going to do so much worse._

"I'm not Seri," I told him, touching his thigh as what was apparently the last of Seri's memories flicked through my mind, it had been triggered by the words he had spoken. Altair grimaced as he lightly pushed himself off the wall and leaned forward so that his face was inches from me.

"I'm Ri..." he cut me off as he clumsily pushed his lips against mine. The taste of copper from the blood in his mouth danced on my tongue, but yet I couldn't bring myself to pull away. Just like before when I had not expected him to return my kiss, I had not expected at all him to kiss me first. And yet, this second time left me yearning for more; I desperately did not want him to stop.

His lips left the tiniest smacking sound as he pulled away and put his other hand to my cheek even though it was obvious that it hurt him to do so. He blinked wearily, cupping my face in his hands.

"Seri… our son… he would have been so beautiful…"

It was like every ounce of energy had left his body then, and he fell limp against the wall. I swallowed hard, trying to blink away the tears that had sprung to my eyes.

"Altaïr?" I managed, giving his leg a slight shake. His head fell forward, like that of a rag doll that had been thrown into the corner.

He was dead.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bowed my head, "I'm sure he would have been beautiful." I heard Alex sniffle from across the room, it seemed he had watched the entire thing with Farley.

before I gave them my attention, I pressed the bottle to my lips and drank what was left inside it. It seemed like an appropriate thing to do.

It felt like ten years had passed before I could find my voice again. I took a deep breath and called out Farley's name.

"Farley!" my voice echoed in the cavernous room, "Farley! Come here!"

"Rio?" She asked meakly as she made her way over from the far doorway, Malik at her heels. I could barely make out Alex's face behind her. Both looked like they had been crying very hard. Though at that moment I felt like I had no energy left, I pointed at Altaïr's lifeless form against the wall.

"Farley, can you lend me a hand?" It was hard pushing the words out of my mouth. I felt like I had gone weeks and weeks without sleeping. The adrenaline rush was now over, and I was left feeling like a puddle of wasted energy, "I need your help."

"With what?" she asked lightly. I pointed at Altaïr again.

"Just, help me."

Farley looked confused as she came closer. with a shaky sigh I climbed to my feet, resisting the urge to fall back down due to the lack of energy, and I led her to Seri's coffin. Together, we pulled the lid back. Farley looked down into Seri's beautiful, unmarred face.

"She's so pretty," she marvelled. I could tell she was trying not to reach out to touch her. so before she could, I grabbed her hand and shook my head. Farley understood, but I knew it was hard for her not to explore, this was probably the only room she hadn't been in. She squinted down into Seri's face. "It's kind of scary how much she looks like you."

"Yeah. I know. Let's hurry up..."

It was hard, but after much grumbling and groaning we managed to balance Altaïr between us in order to bring him to the coffin to rest him alongside Seri. There had been just enough room to lay Altair beside her. I pulled his hood back over his face, and placed the key to the tomb in Seri's hand. As we pushed the lid back into place, the air tight seal reset itself, making almost a mechanical hissing sound. We looked through the crystal at the two bodies sealed within.

"Do you want to let Alex have a look?" Farley asked. Neither one of us looked up from the lovers inside the coffin. I shook my head.

"Let's just go."

I picked Alex up as we made our way out of Seri's tomb, listening as the doors relocked themselves. I felt numb, listless, and unable to answer Farley's questions as we followed Malik out of Narmein. my mind wondering if the phial had held something to numb the pain, as every thing to me felt like I had thick cotton wool wrapped around my head. As soon as we had climbed out of the tunnel, there was a loud rumbling implosion as Narmein crumbled and the land that concealed it sank. The city had collapsed in on itself.

Shouts drifted on the wind from the farmhouse as the archaeologists inside had felt the earth move under them and came scurrying outside like ants to see what was going on. I smiled as I looked over at my sister, She was grinning and hiding something behind her back. I wasn't sure what, and really, I was too tired to care. All I knew was that it made jingled and rattling noses as we made our way back to the farmhouse.

..xoxoxox..

Things for the next three weeks after had been a whirlwind. My father had not wanted Alex and I to leave Syria on our own, even if we were just going to board a plane for France that would take us back home to the States after a switch.

Jessica's death it seemed had proven the dig unstable, ceasing my father's research immediately. Afterwards, we had to wait for the papers retracting the University's funds for the dig to go through before everything was packed up and shipped out. Luckily, it did not take long for the University to pull its funds. In a way, I was relieved that no one would learn more of the Sisterhood, some things were better left alone.

It wasn't until the day we were to board the plane for France that I had learned how Paul had managed to find us in Syria. A thorough investigation into the dig revealed Jessica to be Paul's sister, who had stayed with his mother in England while his father took him back to the states upon their divorce six or seven years before I had met him. When she had discovered that I was coming out to the dig to visit my father, she had immediately called Paul, who immediately boarded the next plane out in order to catch up to us. Apparently, his debts ran deeper than that for the car. I never quite knew whose debt he had planned to use Alex to pay off, and I never wanted to find out.

Paul had managed to get a hold of our location before Jessica had been killed, and apparently had not known that his sister was dead. When he arrived, he blamed my father, thinking she had died due to heat exhaustion. A quarrel between them resulted in a few broken bones on my father's part, though none were too serious. As Paul stomped away in search of both his son and myself, a few of the archaeologists had phoned the authorities, who had then taken my father to a hospital in the city. Afterwards, there were attempts to find Paul, but Narmein's collapse proved it impossible to uncover him, and the ground had been labled as to unstable to excavate.

I couldn't have been more pleased. Somehow, I felt like Narmiens collapse it had all been Seri's doing.

"Mom, look!" Alex shouted as he ran over to me and pointed at a nearby fence. We were helping my father and the archaeologists load the cargo they had managed to find in the early days of the dig onto a private jet. It was all they were allowed to take back with them from the dig site, "It's a big Avalar!"

I followed his finger. Two large birds, they looked like eagles or hawks, were sitting side-by-side on the fence. They were both watching us. The smaller of the two was darker in colour than the other, while the larger one was white with a few golden hues, They were the most unusual-looking birds I had ever seen and I felt a smile tug at the corner of my lips.

_Seri, _I thought, _Altaïr._

They both took flight a few moments later and I noticed something fall to the ground. Walking over and picking it up, I noticed it was the ivory cow necklace that Altaïr had taken from me that day at the farm.

"No," _Altaïr said, snatching the pendent from my fingers, "I gave it to _Seri."

suddenly one of the birds screeched, its voice echoing clear through the air like music on a breeze and I smiled, running my thumb over the smooth ivory.

"Alex, come here," I held my arms out. He skipped toward me and I picked him up, balancing him on my hip, "You know, I think everything is going to be okay..."

Together we watched the two birds fly away, becoming two specks of black in the distant sky. Alex hugged me tightly. I felt him push a kiss into my cheek.

"Everything _will be_ okay," he chirped, "trust me on this..."

I blinked at him, but laughed anyway, watching as Farley wrestled Malik into an animal carrier in order to allow him onto the plane. Kadar the horse was to be flown over in a few weeks after a vet from America had taken him through quarantine both in Syria and in the States. I wasn't sure where Mom or Dad were going to keep him, but I was glad that they had decided to, it saved us allot of future arguments with Farley about it.

"will he come back?" Alex then asked me, he was looking down at the metallic eagle between his fingers.

"I don't know Alex...I just don't know..."

I ran my fingers through his hair as he waved the eagle through the air, making it fly. I could feel my heart crack slightly with my words, I couldn't bring myself to explain to him how it would be impossible for Altaïr to come back.

_Oh well_, I told myself, I wouldn't really need to. In a few months, Alex was going to start school, and I hoped he would soon forget the whole thing. Or, at the very least, it would all seem like a hazy dream. A few years after that, I decided that if I were ever to be brave enough to tell the story of his "invisible" friend, "Avalar the Ninja Lion," to the schoolmates he brought home for after-school cartoons, he would get indignant and insist I was lying, that he didn't have any "invisible" friends.

I felt that I would really only remember, and I secretly enjoyed knowing that it would only be me pondering what in God's name had truly happened to Altaïr, to Seri and to Numair, who I had the feeling wasn't going to simply vacate our plain of existence just because she had killed Paul..

with a sigh I stroked Alex's cheek and kissed his forehead.

"Want to know something something,Trouble?"

"What's that, Mom?"

"I _really _can't wait to go home, and eat some of your Nan's famous peanut butter cookies."

"Mm, cookies!"

I smiled at him.

The memory was apparently fading already...

* * *

**The end!**

**Finally.**

**And now i apologise to you all, there was going to be a sequel, but ive been unable to write it, i have no ideas for it that i can string a long story out of.**

**I did start one, but i deleted it after months of writing nothing.**

**My proverbial well has dried up.**

**But, there may be a series of single chapter stories appearing from this Universe of mine. but they will not have any real plot line. Just random out of sequence ideas.**

**I may also slowly revamp this existing story.**

**This is now my official end to AGOG anyway. And im glad so many of you liked it enough to review and fav and watch it.**

**Also my username has changed, from Blood Of Anubis to The Painted Fox it links with my new DA name better.**


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